Who needs puck luck? Fortunately for No. 6 Denver it didn’t on Saturday night.

The Pioneers bounced back from a tough-luck early goal against to score the next four en route to a 5-2 NCHC victory over host St. Cloud State that temporarily moved them into third in the conference.

Denver has a two-point edge on Western Michigan, after the Broncos’ overtime loss at No. 1 North Dakota on Saturday night, and it rebuilt a four-point edge on the Huskies (13-13-6, 10-10-2 NCHC).

Denver (20-9-5, 10-8-4-3 NCHC) finishes the regular season with a home-and-home series against Colorado College, while Western Michigan plays Miami and St. Cloud State travels to Minnesota Duluth, which has clinched the No. 2 seed.

The Pioneers reached the 20-win plateau for the 19th consecutive season, extending the Tenzer streak.

Five Pioneers scored goals, seven more added assists, and freshman Magnus Chrona made 27 saves for DU, which fired 36 shots at David Hrenak (31 saves).

Road surge

Denver turned the game during a 6-minute stretch covering the end of the first period and the start of the second.

DU found itself down 1-0 after St. Cloud’s Nolan Walker scored a power-play goal on a pass that bounced off Jake Durflinger‘s skate and redirected past Chrona.

Liam Finlay tied it with 4:49 to go in the first when his off-wing snap shot from the left circle beat Hrenak between the pads. Durflinger gained a measure of revenge when his shot from the right circle eluded Hrenak on his glove side. The goal was the junior’s career-high fifth.

Captain Ian Mitchell extended the lead to 3-1 just 1:08 into the second period when he also scored from the right circle off a nice dot-to-dot pass from Jaakko Heikkinen.

Emilio Pettersen made it 4-1 with his third goal in three games and 12th of the season. Pettersen’s snapper beat Hrenak over the glove and under the bar early in the third.

Kohen Olischefski scored an empty-net goal for the Pioneers, who snapped a five-game winless streak (0-4-1) at St. Cloud.

©First Line Editorial 2020