It would be hard to top Saturday night’s hockey gathering at Magness Arena.

No. 1 Denver’s 4-0 non-conference victory over Niagara wasn’t bad either.

The Pioneers honored more than 180 alumni, spanning the program’s 70 years and eight championship teams, during the first intermission.

“We have a great program, and it was awesome to celebrate it with (the alumni),” DU coach David Carle said. “It’s been a great weekend.”

DU began to take control after that celebration, but it could not shake the visitors until Brett Stapley scored a short-handed goal with 9:20 to go in the game to make it 2-0.

One night after getting blown out 6-2 by the Pioneers, the Purple Eagles changed their strategy a bit, and DU had an adjustment period, Carle said.

“They they did a better job pressuring pucks,” he said. “We still generated a lot of shots on goal. We missed some good lucks, but I liked that we stuck with it.

“Most of the night we felt like if we kept going, we’re going to be able to break through. The second goal was a big one.”

The victory moved Denver to 8-0 and gave sophomore Michael Corson a victory – and a 16-save shutout no less – in his first NCAA start, Jake Durflinger‘s second-period goal on a rebound of a Kohen Olischefski shot was the winner. The shutout was the Pioneers’ third of the season.

Defensive lockdown

Not only was Niagara’s quantity of shots low, but the quality was as well.

According my stats, the Purple Eagles (0-6) managed just six shots during 5-on-5 play. Five more came on power plays, Three came during 4-on-4 play, and the last two were 6-on-5 chances in the closing seconds.

Denver won that battle as well, twice finding the empty net (Tyler Ward and Hank Crone).

Very few of the shots Corson saw were high quality ones, and on the few that were, he was up to the task. In the second half of the second period he made a left pad save on Ryan Naumovski during a 4-on-4 and a few minutes later stopped a power play chance from in tight with his blocker.

Another power play chance leaked under his pads, but Davies knocked it out of the crease before it could cross the goal line.

“The commitment, it seemed team wide, not just the defenseman,” Corson said. “Our forwards were getting back, reloading hard. We just stuck in there. I had a great team in front of me. I was very fortunate. They they made it very easy on me tonight.”

Niagara could not manage more than six shots in any one period, one of the many signs of DU’s dominance Saturday. It’s also something that bodes well for the future, Davies added.

“I just think we’re coming around as a team a little bit,” he said. “I think the last two years giving up shots hasn’t really been our strong suit. But we’ve got an older D corps this year. We got older forwards playing in the D zone. So I think you’ll start to see more like it was in 2017 when we don’t give up as many shots, which is obviously a good thing.

“We spent so much time in their zone this weekend that it was hard for them generate any offense anyway.”

One night after generating 48 shots on goal, the Pioneers came within one of matching it.

Be like Mike

Corson said he found out Saturday morning that he was going to get the start.

“We went over the normal game plan for the day and the lineup, and they gave me the go,” he said. “I was pretty pumped.”

His teammates mobbed him after the final buzzer.

“There’s no one in a building that’s more happy for Mike than his teammates,” Carle said. “We’re all over him. It was really exciting. This is a guy who puts in a lot of work and hasn’t had the opportunity to get on the ice.”

A night for legends

If anything the presence of alumni spanning 70 years of Denver hockey fired up the team, Davies said.

“More than anything, it’s a good thing for us,” the senior assistant captain said. “It kind of gets us fired up to go out there and play. You see all the history and the tradition from the 70 years, and it gets you fired up.

“In between periods we got to see all the all the generations of guys come out on the ice, so it makes you want to play for them and makes you want to make them proud out there, and make hard plays, play the play pioneer hockey for them.”

Notable

The Pioneers’ stellar special teams continued. Stapley’s shorthanded goal was an exclamation point on a run that has seen DU kill off 33 of 34 penalties (97.1 percent). The power play is 9 for 41 (22 percent) despite Saturday’s O-fer. Stapley’s goal came after he and Tyson McLellan controlled the puck on a 2-on-3 forecheck.  … Freshman defenseman Lane Krenzen made his NCAA debut.

©First Line Editorial 2019