GREEN BAY, Wis. — Tied at 1-1 early in the second period Sunday, the University of Denver seemed to be in the driver’s seat of the Midwest Regional championship game at the Resch Center.
The Pioneers had consecutive power-play opportunities at 1:14 and 4:45, but after producing a combined five shots and a handful of other good looks in front of North Dakota goalie Aaron Dell, the game was tied.
The momentum switched, and at 7:06 the Sioux’s Evan Trupp scored the game-winning goal on a shift the Pioneers’ fatigue was first seen. DU had played a double- overtime game Saturday.
“We were fresh, we felt good, we liked the way we played in the first period,” DU coach George Gwoz- decky said after the Sioux’s 6-1 victory. “We had some tremendous chances on the power play but couldn’t score. At that point, if we do score, maybe you don’t see as much fatigue as you saw after they came right back down and scored.
“When you’re competing against a very good team like that, you have to generate a lead, and we weren’t able to do that at all.”
DU went 0-of-4 (eight shots) on the power play.
Zucker scores again.
Freshman Jason Zucker scored DU’s goal, banking the puck off Dell from behind the net with 0.02 remaining in the first period. It was Zucker’s 23rd goal of the season, tying him with sophomore Drew Shore for the team lead and Tom Peluso (1970-71) for fifth-most among freshmen in school history.
Footnotes.
The partisan Sioux crowd probably learned more about Colorado hockey after pregame introductions. DU’s starting lineup included four Colorado natives: Shore (Denver) and Luke Salazar (Thornton) and defensemen John Ryder (Colorado Springs) and Chris Nutini (Centennial). . . . This was the first NCAA Tournament game between DU and UND since the Pioneers beat the Sioux 4-1 for the 2005 national championship in Columbus, Ohio.
Mike Chambers, The Denver Post
