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DENVER – A four-goal first period by No. 7 Denver dug the seventh-ranked Miami hockey team into a hole it could climb out of in a 6-2 loss at Magness Arena on Saturday.
Saturday’s setback kept the RedHawks (20-11-1, 13-8-1-1 National Collegiate Hockey) from clinching home ice advantage for the NCHC Playoffs (March 13-15), though they still sit in second place in the league standings with 41 points.
“We were outplayed from the drop of the puck,” head coach Enrico Blasi said. “Denver was the better team tonight.”
The RedHawks got an early opportunity with the power play and sent a couple shots through traffic that Evan Cowley turned aside to keep them off the board. It was all Pioneers from there the rest of the frame. A penalty on MU at the 4:29 mark led to a Danton Heinen power play goal as he redirected Joey LaLeggia’s slap shot from the point 6:08 into the contest. DU added another goal 23 seconds later when Larkin Jacobson corralled a rebound from Josiah Didier’s shot and put it home to make it a 2-0 Denver lead.
Things got worse from there as Heinen found Trevor Moore on a backdoor feed with 7:42 remaining and Ty Loney added another goal by crashing the net and scoring on a rebound 39 seconds later to chase Jay Williams from the crease and put Denver on top 4-0. Miami had another opportunity late in the frame on a power play, but Cowley made two more saves to keep MU down 4-0 after a 20 minute period that saw the Red and White outshot 22-9.
Ryan McKay kept the Pioneers at bay after relieving Williams in the crease, making a combined 19 saves through the second period. The RedHawks got a 5-on-3 power play that led to a goal from Riley Barber as he one-timed a feed from Austin Czarnik from a sharp angle below the left circle to put them on the board at 4-1 with 10:18 left. Denver managed to kill off the second penalty in that sequence, but Miami was able to draw a bit closer with six minutes showing on the clock in the second as Alex Wideman won a footrace to a loose puck and Alex Gacek sent it back down the wall to Matthew Caito, who fed it back to Wideman in front. The senior forward outwaited Cowley while moving across the crease and buried his seventh goal of the year to pull the Red and White within 4-2 after two periods.
The Pioneers started the third period with 37 seconds to work with on a power play, which allowed them to set up early in the offensive zone. While the RedHawks killed off the penalty, LaLeggia’s wrist shot from the left circle eluded McKay two seconds after the power play expired to put DU up 5-2 just 39 seconds into the frame.
Another Denver power play at the 6:09 mark led to Heinen’s second power play marker of the night just 17 seconds later that made it 6-2 and capped the scoring.
The Pioneers outshot the RedHawks 47-21, the most shots Miami has allowed and second fewest it has attempted in a contest this season. Williams took the loss after allowing four goals on 13 shots before being relieved by McKay, who stopped 32 of 34 DU attempts.
While trailing North Dakota by six points in the league standings, Miami still controls its destiny with respect to winning a share of the NCHC regular season title and NCHC Tournament top seed when it hosts No. 1 UND for a two-game series beginning on Friday night. The series opener has a special start time at 6:30 p.m., due to the game being nationally televised on CBS Sports Network.
