DENVER - Marc Cheverie (Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia) stopped 44 shots and Denver's top line scored three times in a 3-1 win over Minnesota tonight before a sellout crowd of 6,045 fans at Magness Arena.

Tyler Ruegsegger (Lakewood), Joe Colborne (Calgary, Alberta) and Rhett Rakhshani (Huntington Beach, Calif.) each scored third-period goals as Denver extended its winning streak to five games and improved to 19-6-4 overall and 13-4-4 in the WCHA. Minnesota falls to 13-14-2, 8-11-2.

"Marc gave us a chance to win tonight with his outstanding goaltending, especially in the second period," DU head coach George Gwozdecky said. "Our team played a strong 20 minutes in the third and we came away with a nice win. We'll need the intensity we played with during the third period tonight at the start of tomorrow night's game."

Cheverie stopped all 26 Minnesota shots, including three breakaway attempts, through two periods to lead Denver to its third consecutive win against the Golden Gophers this season. Ruegsegger and Rakhshani each added assists for multi-point efforts.

After a scoreless 40 minutes, Ruegsegger walked Aaron Ness along the left boards and beat Alex Kangas (28 saves) glove-side to give DU a 1-0 lead 55 seconds into the third period. Assists were credited to John Lee (Moorhead, Minn.) and Cheverie.

Colborne tallied the eventual game-winning goal at 11:37 of the third period with assists going to Rakhshani and Ruegsegger.

Cheverie's bid for a fourth consecutive shutout against Minnesota was lost when Patrick White scored 6-on-5 at 18:22 of the third period. Rakhshani's unassisted spinning wrist-shot sealed the win for Denver 17 seconds later.

Minnesota outshot Denver, 45-31, but went 0-for-5 on the power play. DU was also blanked on all five of its power-play attempts.

Game two of the series is set for tomorrow night at 7:07 p.m.

Notes: DU is second in the WCHA with 30 points and second in the latest PairWise Rankings. Colborne extended his career-best point streak to 11 games, while Rakhshani has a four-game point streak. Colborne, Ruegsegger, Rakhshani, Brian Gifford (Moorhead, Minn.), Matt Glasser (Calgary, Alberta), Chris Nutini (Centennial), Kyle Ostrow (Calgary, Alberta) and Patrick Wiercioch (Maple Grove, British Columbia) were named WCHA Scholar-Athletes late Thursday for having a 3.5 GPA or higher. Jesse Martin (Calgary, Alberta) and William Wrenn (Anchorage, Alaska) missed the game with injuries.