Jan. 22, 2005

Box Score

ST. CLOUD, Minn. - Freshman Peter Mannino (Farmington Hills, Mich.) stopped 26 shots for his sixth consecutive win as the sixth-ranked Denver Pioneers defeated St. Cloud State, 6-1, in WCHA action before 5,595 fans tonight at National Hockey Center. Mannino made seven saves in the first period, 11 in the second and eight in the final period as Denver completed the two-game sweep and four-game regular-season sweep against the Huskies. The Pioneers improve to 16-6-1 overall and 11-4-1 in league play, while St. Cloud State drop to 9-15-2, 5-13-0. Denver also takes sole possession of third place in league play with 23 points.

Mannino set a school record for shutout minutes by a Pioneer goaltender, surpassing former All-American Wade Dubielewicz' mark of 158:26 set in 2001-02. Mannino's streak of 178:16 minutes of action was snapped when St. Cloud State scored at 14:08 of the third period. He is 6-0 with a 1.32 goals against average and .957 saves percentage during his six-game winning streak.

"This was one of those games that was just enjoyable to watch," head coach George Gwozdecky said. "We had scoring from six different guys and (Peter) Mannino was strong in net. St. Cloud played as well as they did last night, but we were better."

Gabe Gauthier (Buena Park, Calif.), Ryan Helgason (Woodbury, Minn.), Luke Fulghum (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Jeff Drummond (Leduc, Alberta), Geoff Paukovich (Englewood, Colo.) and Paul Stastny (St. Louis, Mo.) provided Mannino with all the scoring the freshman would need. Gauthier and Helgason scored in the first period, Fulghum and Drummond scored in the second and Paukovich and Stastny provided goals in the third period.

The Pioneers have won 11 of their last 13 games and stayed unbeaten at 5-0-1 in their last six road games. Denver outshot St. Cloud State, 34-27, and improved to 11-1 on Saturday this season and 8-0 in game two of WCHA series'.

Gauthier, who tallied his second game-winning goal of the season just 59 seconds into the game, added an assist for his 21st career two-point effort. Helgason's goal was his fourth of the season and third against St. Cloud State this season.

Denver will host Alaska Anchorage in a two-game WCHA series on Jan. 28-29 at Magness Arena.