Denver-North Dakota games always are a battle. Friday night’s was a goaltending battle.

The No. 2 Pioneers and the No. 9 Fighting Hawks played to a 1-1 tie before the guests picked up the extra NCHC point in the second overtime on captain Colton Poolman‘s goal with 2:38 left in the 3-on-3 frame.

Magnus Chrona made 37 saves for Denver (8-1-2, 0-1-2-1 NCHC), while counterpart Adam Scheel stopped 30 shots for North Dakota (7-1-2, 2-0-1-1).

“They had some looks, our goalie made some big-time saves. We had some looks, their goalie made some big-time saves,” Denver coach David Carle said. “All in all it was a pretty evenly played game. I thought our effort was good.”

Chances are …

After a somewhat sluggish first period, business picked up in the second, when the teams traded regulation goals. In fact, all of the scoring the NCAA will recognize took place in less than a minute.

Denver’s Kohen Olischefski scored 57 seconds after Jasper Weatherby had given the Fighting Hawks the game’s first lead with 9:02 to play in the second. Weatherby’s redirection of a Jordan Kawaguchi shot from the right circle came 11 seconds into North Dakota’s third power play.

North Dakota held a 21-10 shots on goal edge when Slava Demin initiated the play that led to Olischefski’s goal with an end-to-end rush. Scheel couldn’t corral the loose puck during a scramble in the slot, and Olischefski eventually found and buried it with 8:05 to play in the second.

The goal energized DU, which outshot the guests 9-4 the rest of the period.

From there, the game had ebbs and flows for both teams. North Dakota’s defense made it difficult for Denver to find clean looks, and it seemed to generate multiple-chances opportunities when it gained possession in the DU zone.

“They pressure hard up top, they’re in your face pretty quick, so you’ve got to get rid of it quicker or put it down the wall,” DU captain Ian Mitchell said. “They tried to pressure us up top hard to try to negate us shooting.”

What the game boiled down to, both Carle and Mitchell said, was making the most of the opportunities the Pioneers did have.

“I thought it was a good hockey game,” Mitchell said. “We had our chances, they had theirs. We just couldn’t find that way to get a goal to put us ahead at the end of the game.”

Added Carle, “This game showed again how tight this league is. You’ve got to bury your chances, and we weren’t able to capitalize on them.”

Masked men, part 2

A lot of that had to do with the goalies, each of whom was superlative.

“They stood on their heads tonight,” Mitchell said. “Any time there’s one goal and almost 40 shots it’s definitely a good night for the goalies.”

Chrona got sharper and sharper as the game went along, but he also had his moments in the first period.

“(Magnus) tracked pucks pretty well,” Carle added. “We weren’t moving, we weren’t able to get pucks out, and he got us a lot of whistles.”

Isn’t that special

As is often the case in close games, special teams were of paramount importance Friday.

North Dakota scored its goal on the power play and generated eight of its 38 shots during its five man advantages.

Denver had four shots on its four chances. Time to press the panic button? Not necessarily, Carle said.

“We had some great looks,” the coach said. “(Tyson) McLellan gets two right in the heart. (Emilio) Pettersen has one off the face-off. If we get looks like that, I like our chances.”

Two of North Dakota’s power plays came as a result of too many men on the ice penalties, an unnerving trend.

“We need to tighten up our changes,” Mitchell said. “A couple times we got a bit sloppy, and we can’t be taking those kinds of penalties. It’s going to cost us in the long run.”

Notable

Senior defenseman Erich Fear and junior goaltender Devin Cooley each made their first appearances of the season in the DU lineup. Fear was slotted as the seventh defenseman, while Cooley served as Chrona’s primary backup. Fear played roughly a dozen shifts, including three on the Pioneers’ penalty kill, typically with Michael Davies. “He was good,” Carle said. “He was simple and hard, didn’t try to do too much with the puck. He played to his identity. It was good to have his big body in the lineup.” … Junior wing Ryan Barrow missed his second game in a row because of an undisclosed injury sustained a week ago at Duluth. Barrow might not return before the Christmas break.

©First Line Editorial 2019