Late-period heroics lifted No. 9 Denver in its previous two games. On Saturday, they saved the Pioneers from a defeat.

DU scored twice in the final 1:52 to pull out a 3-3 tie with Alaska Fairbanks at Magness Arena.

Freshman Cole Guttman finished a beautiful cross-slot pass from Emilio Pettersen to pull the Pioneers (3-0-1) to 3-2, and senior defenseman Les Lancaster rifled a shot from the top of the left circle past Anton Martinsson with 35 seconds to play with an extra attacker on for DU.

“It wasn’t our night. We were going off on our own page at times,” DU coach David Carle said. “It was nice to see the last 2-3 minutes (in the third period) we played with some positive emotion.

“That’s the lesson for us, you can’t take shifts off, you can’t take periods off. We as a whole group we have to look in the mirror and figure out how we can be better.”

Paying for their sins

Penalties hurt Denver repeatedly in the first two periods, when it had to kill off a five-minute major in each.

The first one, a boarding call on Ryan Barrow, resulted in the Nanooks (0-5-1) hiking their lead to 2-0 when Ryker Leer finished a nice goal-line pass from Kyler Hope with a forehand-backhand move and shot over Devin Cooley‘s glove with 5:29 to play in the first. Hope had given them a 1-0 lead at 9:57 when he rushed the puck down the left wing and beat Cooley from just inside the left circle.

The second major was a boarding call on Tyson McLellan that came with a game misconduct late in the second. DU killed that off.

“When there’s two of them, that’s really hard,” Pioneers captain Colin Staub said. “We usually only have six to eight guys that penalty kill. When you have to do it for two separate five-minute majors that wears you down a little bit.

“It takes the flow out of the game for everybody else. You don’t get your lines to flow on offense and get your six defenseman rolling. That’s what makes us successful, especially at home.”

The Nanooks led 3-0 just 5:58 into the second period after their second power-play goal, a shot from the right circle by Colton Leiter.

“We need to control our discipline,” Carle said. “A lot of them are 200 feet away from our net and they’re needless. It’s been something we’ve been talking about and it hasn’t equaled action yet. We need to address it.”

The comeback trail

The third member of the top line, senior Jarid Lukosevicius answered Leiter’s goal just 47 seconds later. Pettersen got the puck to the net and Lukosevicius followed it and scored over Martinsson.

That’s how it stood until the closing minutes because the Nanooks did a masterful job clogging lanes and blocking shots (knocking down 10 of their 19 total).

“I don’t think we were sticking to what made us successful last night, which was we were getting pucks to the net, getting our guys to it,” Staub said. “Maybe they were doing a better job pressuring us in the corners so we didn’t have enough time to make those kind of plays. But that was the difference in the first few periods, we weren’t willing to get the hard areas of the ice.

“You could tell the last 10 minutes of that game we had a different mentality, we were going to the net harder.”

Fantastic finish

A loss to an 0-5 team would have been tougher to stomach, and the creativity of Pettersen and defenseman Ian Mitchell ensured that didn’t happen.

Mitchell initiated the sequence in which Guttman scored by getting the puck to Pettersen on the lower inside of the right circle. His pass to Guttman left the center with nothing but net to aim at.

“That’s what Emilio brings to the table, great awareness,” Guttman said. “That last play I just stepped down and he probably put it through three sticks. That was impressive he got that pass through. I just found the open net.”

With Cooley (19 saves) pulled, Lancaster finished off a stretch of sustained pressure with a rocket from the top of the right circle off a pass from Mitchell. The two defensemen kept the attack alive several times with holds at the blue line.

Notes

Defenseman Sean Comrie returned to the lineup and was paired with fellow freshman Slava Demin. … The top line of Lukosevicius, Guttman and Pettersen continues to rack up points, adding five more to give them 18 through four games. … DU again won the battle of the face-off circle, capturing 31 of 56 (55 percent). McLellan won 7 of 8, Brett Stapley took 9 of 14 and Guttman won 9 of 15.

Denver’s three stars

1. Cole Guttman. The freshman set up DU’s first goal and scored the second. Plus he was solid in the circle.
2. Ian Mitchell. The defenseman was everywhere, and made plays that led to the final two goals.
3. Jarid Lukosevicius. His goal gave the Pioneers a chance, and he drew at least two Alaska penalties.

Up next

The Pioneers are off next weekend before beginning NCHC play with a home series against Western Michigan on Nov. 2-3. Both games start at 7:07 p.m.

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