The good vibes from a pregame national championship banner raising and a double-overtime goal by Jarid Lukosevicius didn’t extend to the Denver locker room Friday night.

The top-ranked Pioneers (1-0-2) fired 66 shots at Lake Superior State goalie Nick Kossoff and generally controlled play for long stretches, but ended up with what will go down officially as a 3-3 tie.

“It’s a pride thing for us,” assistant captain Adam Plant said. “We’re at home, we just raised a banner. We don’t want to tie games, that’s not what this program is about. We want to win every single game we play. It’s early in the year, we’ll deal with it and move forward.”

The Lakers (1-2-2) had seized a 2-0 lead just 2:27 into the second period after Max Humitz corralled a turnover at the lower left circle in the DU zone and snapped it past Tanner Jaillet (14 saves). Brayden Gelsinger had given Lake State a lead late in the first period on a power-play blast from the right dot.

That came despite the Pioneers building a 20-plus shot edge midway through the second period. Henrik Borgstrom cut the deficit to 2-1 when he fired home a shot from the slot on DU’s 28th shot on goal. It was his third goal on the first two Fridays of the season.

That’s how it stayed until just past the halfway point of the third period, when Borgstrom’s fantastic stretch pass found Dylan Gambrell inside the Lakers zone, and he beat Kossoff with a backhander.

That tie was short-lived, however, because a turnover beneath the DU goal line led to a tic-tac-toe goal by Jake Hand. Diego Cuglietta took the puck away from a pivoting Ian Mitchell, found Gage Torrel inside the right circle, and Torrel’s cross-slot pass found Hand all alone on a goal Jaillet had no chance on.

“The d-zone coverage, the turnovers, didn’t bother me,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said. “That’s going to happen. It’s the support defense from there. Our layers weren’t good. Guys were not stopping. We’ve got to have someone at the strongside post. If we have someone at the strongside post on both of those goals, the second and third, they don’t happen.”

The Pioneers continued to show some burst, and exactly two minutes later, with 3:34 to play, Liam Finlay cashed in a pass from Lukosevicius, who wheeled around behind the Lakers net and found Finlay open in the low slot.

“Our team showed a lot of resilience there,” Gambrell said. “We didn’t have a lack of confidence. We didn’t get down on ourselves when we got scored on. We took it right back at them and we bounced back. It’s a positive.”

Lukosevicius ended it when he followed defenseman Blake Hillman‘s drive to the net. But the Pioneers weren’t thinking about that just minutes later.

Shooting gallery

On one hand, the Pioneers moved the puck well, skated unrestrained at times and fired shot after shot at Kossoff.

On the other, they acknowledged there is plenty they could improve upon.

“The last 50 minutes (of regulation) were really good,” Montgomery said. “People aren’t stopping at the net to take away the opposing goalie’s eyes well enough.

“We’re not doing things quickly. We’re not looking to shoot quickly which is why the goalie is getting set and making really good saves. We’re not very crisp right now but it’s early in the year. Those are areas to improve on.”

Gambrell concurred.

“It happens, you run into a hot goalie like that,” the assistant captain said. “But we have to get to the net better. We didn’t have enough guys screening, we didn’t have enough guys bearing down, including myself, in front of the net and putting away those rebounds in front of the net.”

DU’s three stars

1. Henrik Borgstrom. If it’s Friday, the sophomore center is scoring. His goal, and his control of the puck seemed to re-energize the Pioneers. He also led Gambrell with a pass that resulted in tying the score at 2.
2. Adam Plant. Seven shots on goal, probably as many big hits and breaking up several Lakers rushes. The senior defenseman was everywhere.
3. Dylan Gambrell. Scored one tying goal and was a presence all night, especially in the third period, when he had three shots.

Next up

The teams face off again Saturday night at 7:05 p.m. at Magness Arena