Slava Demin provided bookends to No. 8 Denver’s series sweep of Wisconsin this weekend.

Demin, who scored the opening goal Friday night, picked up a loose puck between the circles and fired it over Badgers goaltender Jack Barry‘s left shoulder 1:42 into overtime to give the Pioneers a 4-3 victory and their season-high fifth consecutive victory, all on the road.

Demin’s goal, which came on DU’s 40th shot on goal, put the Pioneers ahead for the only time, and the only time it mattered.

Momentum swings

The game featured a few swings of momentum and at least two constants.

One was DU (12-4-2) spent a good portion of the game chasing the scoreboard. The other was the Pioneers substantially outshot the Badgers (8-9-3), finishing with a 40-16 advantage.

But it was Wisconsin that seized a 2-0 lead 5:16 into the game when linemates Dominick Mersch and Brock Caufield scored 28 seconds apart.

“Wisconsin came out hard as we expected,” DU coach David Carle said. “We were on our heels to start the game … that’s the next evolution for our team is to win on Friday night, have an opportunity to sweep on Saturday and really take the fight to them.

“It took them getting two goals on us for us to wake up a little bit, but again, credit to us, we were the better team for two and a half periods – possessing pucks, getting pucks to the net, having a wide margin in the shot count. We had a lot of chances that we could have buried earlier and I give our guys a lot of credit. We stuck with it, our bench was real positive, we didn’t get down and we just continued to work.”

Just less than two minutes later, freshman Tyler Ward scored his second goal in two nights and his fourth of the season when he sent a diving backhand past Berry (36 saves).

From that point until midway through the second period, the Pioneers dominated, eventually pulling even on Erich Fear‘s slap shot 5:25 into the second.

The chase is on again

However, the Badgers started to come on as the period went along and re-took the lead with 9:08 to go after registering their first shot on goal of the period just 12 seconds earlier. Matthew Freytag scored on a snap shot over Filip Larsson‘s glove with Wisconsin on the power play to make it 3-2.

That’s how it stood until midway through the third period, when a member DU’s top line, which had been held off the scoreboard through five-plus periods in Madison, went to work.

Freshman Cole Guttman took a low-to-high pass from Liam FInlay just inside the right circle and fired it past Berry to even things with 12:06 to play.

The teams traded a few chances, but fatigue began to show as the third wore on.

Denver – and Demin – regrouped well enough to pick up an extra point.

Notes

Sophomore goaltender Devin Cooley, who left Friday’s game midway through the second period, did not dress for Saturday’s rematch. Freshman Michael Corson backed up Larsson, who made 13 saves and might be thrust into a full-time role rather than his usual Saturday night starts pattern. … Ryan Barrow‘s assist on Fear’s goal gave him points in six consecutive games. It was the first time in four games he didn’t score a goal.

Denver’s three stars

1. Slava Demin. He was active all game, setting up Tyler Ward’s goal that helped DU get back in the game, before finishing things with his strike in OT.
2. Liam Finlay. The junior drew assists on the final two DU goals and had five points for the weekend.
3. Tyler Ward. The freshman scored a high-effort goal, fired off six shots and went plus-2.

Up next

The Pioneers resume NCHC play with a series next weekend against Omaha at Magness Arena. Friday’s game faces off at 7:37 p.m. while Saturday’s is at 7:07 p.m.

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