Dec. 14, 2001
Box Score
On a night that head coach George Gwozdecky continued to play with his line combinations, playing without three of the team's regular forwards, the University of Denver found plenty of offense, defeating the Mavericks of Minnesota State, Mankato, 6-1. Junior goaltender Wade Dubielewicz (Invermere, British Columbia) made 34 saves in earning seventh win of the year as the Pioneers improved to 13-2-0 overall, 10-1-0 in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association.
Denver was without senior David Neale (Victoria, British Columbia), junior Greg Barber (Kelowna, British Columbia) and freshman Jon Foster (Suffern, N.Y.), but still managed to earn the convincing victory.
Both teams traded scoring chances in the first period, but the goaltenders stood strong, keeping the game scoreless through 20 minutes of play. Denver's best opportunity came with just over six minutes remaining in the period. Junior J.J. Hartmann (Colorado Springs, Colo.) took the puck behind the net, got loose from his defender and walked out in front of Mankato goalie Jason Jensen. Hartmann made a move on Jensen, forced the goaltender to commit and then tapped the puck off the post. At the 18:05 mark, the Mavericks saw their best scoring chance thwarted by Denver junior goalie Dubielewicz. The Maverick skater got loose behind the net and centered the puck to MSU's leading scorer Nate Mauer. Mauer let a one-timer fly, labeled for the far side, but Dubielewicz somehow managed to slide across the crease and made a great save. Dubielewicz stopped all 11 Mankato shots, while Denver was forced to kill three penalties.
After killing 1:15 of a penalty, Denver sophomore defenseman Ryan Callwell (Deloraine, Manitoba) skated out of the penalty box, took a breakout pass from sophomore Connor James (Calgary, Alberta) and, with seemingly all the time in the world, beat Jensen to give the Pioneers a 1-0 advantage. Just six seconds into Denver's second power play, senior Chris Paradise (St. Paul, Minn.) sent a slapshot on net from the point that beat Jensen, giving the Pioneers a two-goal lead with 16:11 left to play in the middle stanza. On their third power play, the Pioneers were credited with a strange goal. James took a great pass from his teammate at the right of the MSU crease. His shot was stopped by Jensen, but the puck came out front to a Maverick defenseman who was forced to play the puck quickly as the Pioneers were swarming the net. Trying to simply slap the puck back to the boards and out of harms way, the MSU defenseman accidentally put the puck into the net. The goal was credited to James, his eighth of the year. With just over three minutes left in the second, and on its sixth power play of the night, Minnesota State ended Dubielewicz's perfect game when Tim Jackman took a drop pass just over the blueline and beat the Denver netminder. That snapped the Pioneers' streak of 20 consecutive penalty kills. Through 40 minutes of play, the Mavericks outshot the Pioneers 24-22, but it was Denver taking a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.
With 7:39 remaining in the third period, the Pioneers extended their lead to 4-1 when sophomore Greg Keith (Delta, British Columbia) took a centering pass from fellow sophomore Max Bull (Faribault, Minn.) and beat Jensen. With 1:52 left to play, Denver pushed that lead to 5-1 on its seventh power play. Senior Jesse Cook (Englewood, Colo.) sent a shot on net that sophomore Lukas Dora (Lednic, Czech Republic) redirected past the Mankato goalie. Just 59 seconds later, freshman Kevin Ulanski (Madison, Wis.) took a great pass from sophomore Dora and slipped the puck into the open side of the net. That was all the scoring in the third and final stanza and more than enough as Denver skated to a 6-1 league win.
The Pioneers and Mavericks will conclude the conference series with the finale tomorrow night (Dec. 15). Denver and MSU-Mankato will face off a 6:05 p.m. MT.
