March 15, 2002
Box Score
Behind junior Wade Dubielewicz' 26 saves and two goals from senior Chris Paradise, the Denver Pioneers avenged a late-season league series sweep at the hands of archrival Colorado College, 3-0, to advance to the WCHA Playoff Championship Game on Saturday.
The Pioneers improved to 31-7-1 overall and move on to the league playoff title game for the first time since 1998-99, when they last captured the WCHA Playoff Championship. With the win, the Pioneers have posted the third-most victories in school history behind only the 1977-78 (33) and 1985-86 (34) clubs.
Denver will play the winner of Friday's second semifinal between No. 2 seed St. Cloud State and No. 3 Minnesota. Faceoff for Saturday's championship game is 6:08 p.m. Mountain. The game is scheduled to air live in the Denver metropolitan area on KPAX-TV, Channel 53 and KCKK 1600 AM radio. The game will also be shown tape-delayed on Fox Sports Rocky Mountain, Sunday at 1 p.m. Mountain.
The No. 1 seed Pioneers drew first blood at 8:38 of the first period off some persistent work in their offensive zone. Sophomore Lukas Dora (Lednice, Czech Republic) pushed the puck down low behind the Colorado College net. With Dora tying up a CC defenseman, freshman winger Kevin Ulanksi (Madison, Wisc.) scooped up the loose puck, wheeled to the front of the cage, and dished to an open Paradise (St. Paul, Minn.), who deked to the backhand before depositing his 20th goal of the season behind Tiger goalie Jeff Sanger.
Dubielewicz (Invermere, British Columbia) was sharp in the early going, stopping Tiger 10 shots in the first period, including a breakup of a 2-on-1 chance and two close-in chances in the final 2:00 of the stanza. The Pioneers fired 13 shots on the CC goal. For the game, Denver outshot CC, 29-26.
Denver endured a sluggish start to the second period before increasing the margin to 2-0 at 14:10. Despite being badly outshot at that point in the period and generating few offensive chances, sophomore Greg Keith (Delta, British Columbia) collected a loose puck off the skate of a Tiger defenseman and broke in alone on the CC net. Deking once on his forehand, Keith buried his 7th goal of the season past Sanger's outstretched pad to bring the Pioneers back to life. Dubielewicz put an exclamation point on the period when he denied the Tigers' Joe Cullen on the doorstep with just 2 seconds remaining.
In the third period, Dubielewicz ensured there would be no change in the game's momentum. After CC killed off a power play sustained at 8:45, Dubielewicz stopped a drive by Shaun Winkler and the close-in follow-up chance by Trent Clark. Both teams went scoreless on the power play (Denver 0-for-5, CC 0-for-3). Paradise capped the scoring at 12:10 of the third period when he finished a rink-length rush off a feed from Ulanski, swooping in on Sanger and roofing a shot over his blocker.
Notching his second shutout of the season and the fifth of his career, Dubielewicz has run his current scoreless string to 135:57 going back to the 15:10 mark of the second period of the Pioneers' 5-1 WCHA first-round playoff win over Michigan Tech on March 8. His career best is 146:18 of scoreless hockey.
