Denver rode the wave Saturday night.

The No. 7 Pioneers built a 2-0 lead after two periods against Western Michigan, and seemed well on their way to a sweep on the opening weekend of NCHC play. But the Broncos had other ideas, scoring three times in a 5:16 span to push the Pioneers to the brink of what would have been a – to put it mildly – disappointing loss.

But Denver reached back into its resiliency reserve to pull out a 4-3 overtime victory, delivered by Emilio Pettersen, Jarid Lukosevicius and defensemen Ian Mitchell and Michael Davies.

“When we were down 3-2, I never felt like we were out of the game,” said Mitchell, who set up Pettersen’s tying goal with 2:30 play, just seven seconds into a power play. “Everyone on the bench was bringing each other up and talking out there. That was big, keeping ourselves in the right mindset.”

Lukosevicius, who scored five goals on the weekend, got the final one with 2:20 to play in the five-minute overtime, taking a nice cross slot feed from Michael Davies, who skated from left to right in the Broncos’ zone. Lukosevicius’s shot caught Ben Blacker (36 saves) leaning a bit to his left and cleared his right shoulder.

“He’s such a great goal scorer,” Mitchell said. “He gets the puck on his stick and anywhere near the net you it’s going in. It’s big for us having that one-shot shooter on our team.”

Different story, same result

One night after leading the entire way in a 5-2 victory that was about as complete as it gets, the Pioneers found themselves in a dogfight against the Broncos despite that 2-0 lead – built on a first-period goal by Slava Demin and Lukosevicius’ second-period strike.

Both came on the power play, which was superlative at 3 for 8. But Western wasn’t about to make it easy.

“Their forecheck, how they took away walls, their back check, they pressured really well,” DU coach David Carle said. “It was challenging for us all weekend long. At times we handled it really well, we were able to catch them in between, but at others we had to stop on pucks and rebuild from the D zone.

“They didn’t go away. They continued to work. Andy (Murray is) a great coach.”

No more nightmares

It was a scenario eerily reminiscent of last season at Kalamazoo, Mich., when Western twice rallied from three-goal deficits in the third period to stun DU on back-to back nights.

“In NCHC hockey, anything can happen in a matter of seconds. It happened to us last year at Western Michigan,” Lukosevicius recalled. “We didn’t respond well when they scored. This year we’ve emphasized never give up. We kept saying on the bench never give up, keep believing. Look to the next shift, don’t worry about the last shift, and that’s what we did (Saturday).”

Josh Passolt started the Broncos’ rally at 3:54 of the third. Just 2:59 later, defenseman Mattias Samuelsson, a Buffalo Sabres draft pick, wired a shot from the left point through traffic to tie the score.

A bad bounce at DU’s offensive blue line quickly turned into a WMU scoring chance when Lawton Courtnall blazed down the left wing and shot a dart at Devin Cooley (23 saves) that Paul Washe tapped in at 9:10.

“We had a 5-, 6-minute lull in the third, but it was great to see the resiliency of our group for the second time this season in a come-from-behind situation,” Carle said. “All we can control is how we respond, the attitude we have and how we try to attack to the game. I thought we responded extremely well after going down 3-2.”

An important first

Demin’s goal was the first of his NCAA career, and it took some air out of the Broncos, who had successfully killed off almost four minutes of Jamie Rome‘s major boarding penalty on Davies just 1:36 into the game.

The Pioneers’ second power-play unit controlled the puck for more than a half minute before Liam Finlay found Les Lancaster in the high slot. Lancaster worked the puck to his left, and Demin’s made a goal-scorer’s play, firing a shot from the left dot to beat Blacker up high.

Notes

Denver outshot WMU 40-26 and held a 40-27 advantage on face-offs (60 percent). Freshman Brett Stapley won 15 of 24 draws (62.5 percent). … DU made two changes to its lineup, inserting sophomore forwards Jake Durflinger and Kohen Olischefski.

Denver’s three stars

1. Jarid Lukosevicius. The senior capped a five-goal weekend with an overtime winner.
2. Emilio Pettersen. The freshman tied the score in the closing minutes and added two assists.
3. Ian Mitchell. The sophomore played a well-rounded game and had two assists for the second night in a row.

Up next

The Pioneers travel to Minnesota to play No. 2 St. Cloud State in a pair of NCHC games on Friday and Saturday. Both games face off at 6:07 p.m. MST