MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. – The No. 5 University of Denver hockey team fell 4-3 to the Lindenwood Lions on Friday night in the series opener at Centene Community Ice Center.
 
Jacob Fletcher scored with 2:37 left in the third period to break a 2-2 tie for LU, and teammate Adam Raesler registered the eventual game-winning goal into an empty net 71 seconds later.
 
DU's Hagen Burrows tallied his second of the game with 53 seconds remaining while the Pioneers had an extra attacker on the ice, but they weren't able to close the one-goal gap on the scoreboard. It was Burrows' first career multi-goal game after he netted one marker as a freshman last season.
 
"Credit to Lindenwood and congrats to them on a signature win for their program," said Denver Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach David Carle. "We got what we deserved. They deserved to win the hockey game. We had moments in the game where we did what we wanted to do and certainly moments where it was tough sledding in the sense of we weren't playing the game as it needed to be played—stopping on pucks, getting pucks over lines, stopping and starting. Penalties were obviously a factor. We didn't want to take one in the third—we ended up taking two on the road in a tied hockey game."
 
Denver (1-1-1) goes for the weekend split on Saturday as it wraps up the series at Lindenwood (3-2-0) at 6 p.m. MT. The game will be broadcast on FloHockey.tv.
 
Sam Harris joined Burrows on the scoresheet with a goal on the power play—the Pioneers' only man advantage of the evening. DU stayed perfect on the penalty kill as it nullified all four of the Lions' chances and is now 8-for-8 in man-down situations this year.
 
Denver goaltender Paxton Geisel made 29 saves and was dealt the loss, the first of his collegiate career.
 
Hosting DU for the first-time ever, Oliver Houde opened the scoring for Lindenwood at 7:47 of the second period before the Pios' responded with two goals in a matter of 44 seconds. Harris scored at 11:03 and Burrows at 11:47 to give DU a brief lead at 2-1 before Ty Hipkin tied the contest for LU with less than seven minutes left in the middle stanza.
 
Shots finished even at 33-33, with Lindenwood netminder Klayton Knapp ending with 30 saves in the victory. LU had a 37-32 edge in faceoffs.
 
UP NEXT: Denver continues its four-game road swing on Saturday at Lindenwood before heading to Boston to play Boston College and Northeastern next weekend on Oct. 24-25.
 
 
POSTGAME NOTES

• Brendan McMorrow made his collegiate debut after missing the start of the season last week with an upper-body injury.
• Goaltender Paxton Geisel started in consecutive games for the first time in his career.
• Geisel had his career-long shutout streak of 96:32 end in the second period. The clean sheet stretched across three games dating back to Feb. 3, 2024 vs. Western Michigan.
• The Pios were beginning a season-long four-game road swing.
• DU was making its first-ever trip to the St. Louis area to play Lindenwood and is now 4-1-0 all-time against the Lions.
• Denver is now 14-2-1 in its last 17 non-conference games dating back to the start of last season.
• Kyle Chyzowski recorded his first NCAA point with an assist on Sam Harris' goal.
• Clarke Caswell registered an assist and is on a three-game point streak to begin his collegiate career (1g/3a).
• Eric Pohlkamp had his four-game points streak dating back to the NCAA Regional Final vs. Boston College on March 30 come to an end (4g/2a).
• Sam Harris and Hagen Burrows recorded their first goals of the year.
• Burrows recorded his first career multi-goal game. It was his second and third career goals as his only other marker came on March 15 vs. Colorado College in Game 2 of the 2025 NCHC Quarterfinals.
• Burrows' second goal came with an extra attacker on the ice, Denver's first such goal of the season. The Pioneers had four pulled-goalie goals in 2024-25..
• Denver played its first scoreless first period of the season.
• The Pioneers scored on the power play for the second straight game and remained perfect on the penalty kill this season (8-for-8).
• DU announced prior to the game that Tory Pitner will be out two-to-three months with a lower-body injury.

 
GOAL SUMMARY
1st Period
No Scoring
 
2nd Period
7:47 LU (0-1) – Oliver Houde scored during a scramble in the crease after the puck caromed off his skate.
11:03 DU (1-1) – PPG, Sam Harris redirected Kyle Chyzowski's pass in the low slot and the puck slid through the crease and across the goal line 28 seconds into the man advantage.
11:47 DU (2-1) – Hagen Burrows tapped in Samu Salminen's pass at the right side of the crease during a Denver 3-on-1 rush.
13:03 LU (2-2) – Ty Hipkin stole the puck along the wall, danced around two DU defenders and tallied with a wrist shot.
 
3rd Period
17:23 LU (2-3) – Jacob Fletcher stickhandled around a Pioneer player and scored on a wrist shot from the slot.
18:34 LU (2-4) – ENG, Adam Raesler deposited the puck into the open net from the neutral zone.
19:06 DU (3-4) – Hagen Burrows tallied on a one-time slap shot from the left side off passes from Brady Milburn and Garrett Brown.
 
 
QUOTABLES
Richard and Kitzia Goodman Hockey Head Coach David Carle
On the third period: "I liked how we started the third and we did a lot of good things in the third at 5-on-5, but certainly four minutes of killing (penalties) and then you have a pulled-goalie situations for two, two-and-a-half minutes, that's a lot of time off the clock where you could be trying to score. Obviously right before they scored their 3-2 goal, we really hemmed them in. I thought we were on our third line change to their one, and unfortunately we ended up with a forward back (in the defensive zone) and they made a play one-on-one and got the goal. We did some good things tonight, but not enough to win a hockey game on the road. I think we took four penalties to their one. Give them credit. Congratulations to them."
 
On freshman Brendan McMorrow's debut: "You see his skating and his tenacity, his ability to hunt pucks. I think his timing offensively is only going to get better. He missed most of training camp due to an injury. Missed most of pre-training camp when the captain's skates are happening; he happened to get hurt in late July. You can tell some of the timing maybe with the puck is off, but I thought that got better as the game wore on and he was a big factor in our (penalty) kill going 4-for-4 on the evening. Very happy with how he played and the intensity he played with. Many of our players could learn something from his second and third effort, and his tenaciousness on pucks."

 
TICKETS: Single-game tickets and 5-game mini plans for DU hockey's 2025-26 campaign are on sale now. Click here for more information.