DENVER – Freshman defenseman Zeev Buium scored the game-tying goal midway through the third period and junior forward Carter King tallied nearly two minutes into overtime on Saturday night to give the No. 3 Denver Pioneers hockey team a 3-2 victory against the No. 2 North Dakota Fighting Hawks at Magness Arena.
 
The Pioneers (11-4-1, 4-2-0 NCHC) split their weekend set against the Hawks (12-3-1, 5-1-0 NCHC) after UND won the series opener on Friday. North Dakota still earned one point in the NCHC standings on Saturday with the game being decided in the extra session.
 
"Very different style of hockey game. It was good to see that we were comfortable in the game, coming back from two, one-goal deficits," said Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach David Carle. "I'm glad we won the game, but regardless of the outcome I just thought we showed a lot more battle to be in a real tight-checking hockey game. I thought it was a good experience for us to go through. We haven't been in many this year … Excellent team on the other side. I thought we showed a lot of maturity from night 1 to night 2."
 
King buried the game-winner at 2:06 of OT on a rebound after Massimo Rizzo's shot on a 2-on-1 with Buium was initially stopped. The Calgary, Alberta, native was the trailer up the ice and knocked in the loose puck while the Pioneers caught the Hawks on a line change.
 
"Knew we had numbers going back," King said. "Obviously it was a 2-on-1, wanted to give [Zeev Buium and Massimo Rizzo] that chance, and kind of walking down Broadway and it was hitting for me."
 
Buium and sophomore Aidan Thompson both finished with a goal and an assist, as Thompson evened the score at 1-1 at 4:38 of the second period and Buium recorded his fifth tally of the season with 8:55 remaining in the third.
 
Sean Behrens, Tristan Lemyre and Jared Wright joined Rizzo with assists in the game, and DU goaltender Freddie Halyk made 29 saves in his 11th consecutive start.
 
North Dakota outshot Denver 31-22 on the evening and 14-7 in the first period, but six of those shots came during a five-minute major power play after Sam Harris was given a game misconduct for checking from behind at 10:30 of the opening stanza. UND capitalized with the extended man advantage as Cameron Berg scored with 17 seconds remaining in opportunity, but the Pios limited the damage to just one goal against.
 
Tied 1-1 after the second period following Thompson's goal, Hunter Johannes put the Fighting Hawks back in front early in the third frame before Buium tied the score again on a wrist shot from the slot off a feed from Thompson.
 
Buium, the National Co-Player of the Month for October, extended his point streak to 10 games—now the second-longest by a freshman blueliner in college hockey since 2002. Only Boston University's Lane Hutson's 11-game run last season from Dec. 11, 2022-Feb. 6, 2023 is longer in the last 20-plus years.
 
Netminder Ludvig Persson made 19 saves in net for North Dakota, which had its nation-leading eight-game winning streak come to an end.
 
Denver the UND will meet again on Jan. 26-27 in Grand Forks to wrap up their four-game regular-season series.
 
UP NEXT: Denver heads to Western Michigan to play the No. 14 Broncos next Friday and Saturday, Dec. 8-9 before going on a three-week holiday break. DU's next game at home is an exhibition against Minot State on Dec. 30.
 
 
POSTGAME NOTES

• The Pioneers finished their season-long six-game homestand with a 4-2-0 mark.
• Denver improved to 7-0-0 on Saturdays this season.
• DU is now 1-1-1 in overtime games this year.
• Carter King scored his first career overtime goal and his fifth game-winning goal of his collegiate career.
• Zeev Buium's two points (1g/1a) pushed his career-long point streak to 10 games (4g/13a), which is the longest such run by a DU player this season and the longest since Carter Mazur also had a 10-game stretch late last season from Feb. 10-March 11, 2023 (5g/9a). It is the second-longest point streak by a freshman defenseman in the nation since 2002, as only Boston University's Lane Hutson's 11-game run last season from Dec. 11, 2022-Feb. 6, 2023 is longer.
• Freshman forward Miko Matikka missed his first game of the season due to an illness.
• Sophomore forward Tristan Lemyre played his second game of the season and picked up his first point with an assist.
• Sophomore Jared Wright appeared in his 50th career game.

 
GOAL SUMMARY
1st Period
14:48 UND (0-1) – PPG, Cameron Berg found the back of the net with a wrister from the right side during a major power play.
 
2nd Period
4:38 DU (1-1) – Aidan Thompson scored off a pass from Jared Wright after jumping onto the ice from a line change.
 
3rd Period
3:08 UND (1-2) – Hunter Johannes buried a wrist shot after being the third forward up the ice on a rush.
11:05 DU (2-2) – Zeev Buium tallied on a wrister from the slot after taking a pass from Aidan Thompson.
 
Overtime
2:06 DU (3-2) – Carter King knocked in the loose puck in the low slot after Massimo Rizzo's shot was stopped during a 2-on-1 with Zeev Buium.
 
 
QUOTABLES
Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach David Carle
On the difference from Friday's game: "I think just living in the battle. Momentum swings, I didn't think we managed really well last night, obviously. Once they kind of got it going, we really had no way of stopping it (on Friday). I thought tonight, when we had that one poor shift in the second, we strung two or three shifts to kind of fight back and retake the momentum, or at least even it out. To me, that was really the biggest thing.
 
On responding during momentum swings: "I will say that we have never felt poor to responding to goals against. Even last night, they scored and we scored a shift or two later. That's happened a few times this year where we've been scored on first—in the majority of our games I think if you look at the 16 of them—but we didn't allow the bleeding to continue. And we didn't score right away after, we kind of got it back and we generated some looks and chances. Just a lot more mature game by us, and one that we'll have to be comfortable in to win in big moments and big games and tough environments."
 
Junior Forward Carter King
On bouncing back from Friday's game: "It was a lot of learning to do. Each guy looked in the mirror today and got better and played better as a team. It's a tight games, it's always going to be in our conference, but that was a lot of growth from our team out there."
 
On young players on the team learning: "We know there are going to be challenges this year. We have a lot of young guys, [11] freshmen, and we just got to learn and keep getting better, and that is kind of the emphasis that we've had at the start of the year, so really proud of a lot of guys."
 

TICKETS: Single-game tickets and full and partial season-ticket packages are available. Click here for more.