“To be honest, I don’t know if we’ve had a more complete road game during my tenure at Denver,” Coach Jim Montgomery said after the Pioneers shut out Minnesota-Duluth, 3-0, on Friday night. The win was Montgomery’s 50th behind the DU bench.

Here is a closer look at the game:

Reshuffling: The Monty Shuffle – moving several players up and down the forward lines and on the power play could not have worked better.  Freshman Jarid Lukosevicius scored twice on the power play, freshman Troy Terry (who has points in three of the past four games) set up both goals, and captain Grant Arnold applied the finishing move 40 seconds after Lukosevicius’ second strike. “It was a great shot,” Montgomery said. “He looked like Guy Lafeur on that one.”

Clamping down: The coach said defending the Bulldogs’ rush would be a big challenge. Challenge answered. Montgomery noted the play of Nick Neville and Tariq Hammond in particular (adding strong play from Will Butcher, Nolan Zajac and Adam Plant is a given). On the rare occasions the Bulldogs had great chances, Evan Cowley played his best, stopping all 27 shots he faced for his first shutout of what is a very strong start to his season. “Evan was fantastic,” Montgomery said. “He was square to pucks, he was calm. … He and Tanner (Jaillet, Saturday’s presumed starter) have taken their games to another level. Our team is so confident with them in net.”

The early and late show: Allowing goals early and late in periods plagued the Pioneers in losses to Air Force, Boston College and Boston University. Friday, they turned the tables. Lukosevicius’ first goal came 5:10 into the game. His second with 2:40 to go in the second. Arnold tallied 40 seconds later. Goal No. 1 took the crowd out of the game. Nos. 2 and 3 kept them out. Danton Heinen picked up an assist on the second goal, giving him points in three straight games and four of the past five.

Red light specials: Another key for DU was getting its power play going. Personnel changes helped here, with Lukosevicius adding some juice. “(Goal scoring) is a skill he’s always had,” Montgomery said. The freshman went hard to the net for his first goal and scored his second off a tic-tac-toe rush off a nice feed from Terry. In all, DU went 2 for 6 on the PP and stopped both UMD power plays, including a five-minute major on Dylan Gambrell late in the first that briefly overlapped a Matt Marcinew minor. “Our special teams were fantastic,” Montgomery said. “We know we’re going to get their best tomorrow night.”

Air supply: Could the Pioneers’ energy level have something to do with playing at sea level after training at altitude? Don’t rule it out. “The energy we had was incredible. Coming down to sea level we really had our legs,” Montgomery said.

@MagnessMayhem