MacGregor Sharp scored 1:25 into overtime to give Minnesota Duluth a 3-2 win over the No. 8 University of Denver Pioneers in the opening game of their WCHA first-round playoff series tonight in front of 5,706 fans at Magness Arena. DU, which played in its third consecutive overtime contest, saw its 16-game overtime unbeaten streak end with the loss.<\/p>\n
The Pioneers (20-14-3), the No. 2 seed in the WCHA Playoffs, were led by sophomore center Paul Stastny’s two power-play goals. Freshman right wing Patrick Mullen assisted on both scores for the Pioneers, who finished 2-for-5 on the power play and totaled 29 shots.<\/p>\n
DU junior goaltender Glenn Fisher made 15 saves in taking the loss.<\/p>\n
UMD (10-23-4) snapped its six-game losing streak with the win and was led by left wing Andrew Carroll’s two goals and one assist. The No. 9-seeded Bulldogs were 1-for-2 on the power play, and UMD goaltender Nate Ziegelmann stopped 29 shots to earn the win.<\/p>\n
“Minnesota Duluth played really well tonight and deserves full credit for the win,” DU head coach George Gwozdecky said. “You could really see that we lost a lot of our intensity and determination as the game went on, and Duluth sensed that and got better and better.”<\/p>\n
The Pioneers took control of the game from the opening face-off, forcing UMD to commit an interference penalty in front of its own net 10 seconds into the contest. They capitalized on the power play with a wide-open Stastny deflecting a cross-ice pass from Mullen into the net from just outside the crease to give DU a 1-0 lead 1:25 into the game.<\/p>\n
Junior defenseman Matt Carle set up DU’s first goal by showing outstanding awareness in feeding Mullen the puck along the right boards with a back-handed pass, putting the right winger in position to find Stastny for the score.<\/p>\n
DU maintained control of the game for duration of the first period, building an 8-1 shot advantage at the 10-minute mark and outshooting UMD, 12-2, after the first 20 minutes while not committing one penalty. Fisher was rarely tested early on but did make a pad save on a hard shot off the stick of Jason Garrison from the slot with less than two minutes remaining in the first period.<\/p>\n
The Pioneers’ first penalty of the game, an interference call on sophomore defenseman Andre Thomas in the second period, proved costly. DU could not secure the rebound from a blue-line shot on the ensuing power play, allowing Andrew Carroll to poke the puck past Fisher to tie the score, 1-1, at 15:06 of the second period.<\/p>\n
Carroll’s second goal of the game 2:36 into the third period put the Bulldogs ahead 2-1, but their lead would not last long.<\/p>\n
A great effort by sophomore left wing Ryan Dingle in front of the net drew a hooking penalty that put the Pioneers on the power play less than a minute after the UMD score. DU capitalized on the power play with Stastny tying the game, 2-2, on his second goal of the contest at 4:02 of the third period.<\/p>\n
The Pioneers had a five-minute power play that began with 9:59 left in the game but were unable to score on the extra-man opportunity that stemmed from Nick Kemp’s major penalty for checking from behind. A short time after that penalty expired, DU streaked into the Minnesota Duluth zone on a two-on-one but Ziegelmann stopped senior left wing Ted O’Leary’s one-timer at 4:29 to preserve the tie.<\/p>\n
Sharp won the game for Minnesota Duluth in overtime, slipping the puck into a wide-open net at 14:25 of the extra period with Fisher on the ice after making a series of saves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
MacGregor Sharp scored 1:25 into overtime to give Minnesota Duluth a 3-2 win over the No. 8 University of Denver Pioneers in the opening game of their WCHA first-round playoff series tonight in front of 5,706 fans at Magness Arena. DU, which played in its third consecutive overtime contest, saw its 16-game overtime unbeaten streak […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7400"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7400\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7400"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwproxy.uscho.com\/recaps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}