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DENVER — Behind 32 saves from Zane McIntyre and a goal and an assist from Nick Mattson, No. 1 North Dakota earned a split of its series with No. 11 Denver, beating the Pioneers 3-1 in front of 5,583 fans at Magness Arena.
“We had a better start tonight obviously, a little bit more pace, and we were able to get a little bit of momentum,” said North Dakota coach Dave Hakstol. “It was just a close, hard game all the way through.”
North Dakota struck first just after a Denver penalty expired. Off a faceoff, a Denver defender lost his stick and the Pioneers started running around. That allowed Mattson to pick up the puck deep in the right corner and skate toward the slot, where he beat Tanner Jaillet with a quick wrist shot that banked in off the corner cross bar at 13:48.
“That was a big-time play,” said Hakstol. “He was on his toes, he was in attack mode, and Nick is real good when he’s playing that way. He took the ice over and made a play to get to a grade A spot.”
Denver came out with a lot of jump to start the second, and dominated the first four minutes, generating several excellent scoring chances, including one from in close by Nolan Zajac. However, McIntyre came up big.
The game then changed dramatically when Bryn Chyzyk carried the puck deep into Denver’s zone and sent a perfect pass to Nick Schmaltz on the far right side. Schmatlz quickly buried the opportunity at 6:09.
“I liked our entire game; I thought our second period was fine,” said Hakstol. “We knew they were going to come with a push early on and they did. I expect that from them; they’re an outstanding team. I thought we handled it well.”
Frustrated, the Pioneers started pressing and trying to get on the board. It backfired when Michael Parks and Drake Caggiula broke in two-on-one and Parks fed a wide-open Caggiula with a pass behind Will Butcher, and Caggiula buried it into the open net before Jaillet could slide back into position at 8:04.
“We were pressing and trying to build momentum shift after shift,” said Denver coach Jim Montgomery. “When you play good teams, and you don’t cover for defensemen that are being active, you end up giving up two-on-ones, and one almost ended up a two-on-oh. One was a bad line change with a bad dump-in, and the other was a guy just got caught, and good teams make you pay.”
Denver finally got on the board at 9:01 of the third when Nolan Zajac beat McIntyre with a one-timer from the right point off a pass from Josiah Didier. However, while the Pioneers poured on the pressure, firing 16 shots in the third, they couldn’t get any more past McIntyre.
“They played with more pace and played with more focus than we did,” said Montgomery. “They had two men on pucks quicker than we did, so they had a lot of puck possession time.”
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