The Mash Line crushed Colorado College at Magness Arena on Saturday night.
Grant Arnold’s breakout pass to Matt Tabrum led to a drop pass for Larkin Jacobson and the 230-pound senior looked like Peter Forsberg for his third goal of the season — all game-winning tallies.
In a Gold Pan game that was previously dominated by NHL draft picks, the University of Denver’s fourth line made the play of the game as the Pioneers beat the Tigers 6-3 to sweep the four-game season series.
Four DU seniors combined for five goals.
“The game-winning goal, I thought our Mash Line was awesome. They were really going and I was playing them every second shift with the (Daniel) Doremus line, that’s how effective I thought they were,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said. “And what a poised play. It was really good entry but just a really poised play by Larkin.”
Denver moved from ninth to sixth in the all-important national PairWise Rankings.
Tied 3-3 after CC struck for two goals within the first 1:20 of the third period, Jacobson capped a tremendous play by The Mash Line by deking goalie Tyler Marble in front of the near post and sliding a back-hander into the net from his knees.
Arnold, the DU captain from Centennial, started the play with a strong exit-zone pass to Tabrum to start the rush. Tabrum is a Colorado Springs-born product and the son of former CC assistant coach Mark Tabrum.
The entire game featured big plays by invested Coloradoans. CC sophomore defenseman Jaccob Slavin from Erie had two goals and DU senior defeseman Josiah Didier of Littleton scored his third goal in his 139th career game.
Jacobson’s goal came at 15:15 of the third period and Zac Larraza made it 5-3 at 17:28 and Trevor Moore added an empty-netter at 19:29.
CC, which lost its 10th consecutive game, didn’t go quietely. Slavin scored his second goal of the game in the first minute of the third period to make it 3-2 and Peter Maric tied it a minute later by tossing in a loose puck from his knees behind DU freshman goalie Tanner Jaillet.
NHL-drafted players Larraza (Arizona), Didier (Montreal) and Joey LaLeggia (Edmonton) scored in building Denver’s 3-1 lead. Slavin’s rights are owned by Carolina.
With the late-game rally, Denver (18-10-2, 11-8-1 NCHC) climbed past Minnesota-Duluth in the fourth and final conference playoff seed, a point ahead of the Bulldogs. Each NCHC team has four remaining games; DU hosts second-place Miami (Ohio) for a series this weekend before finishing March 6-7 at sixth-place St. Cloud State .
Denver dominated the first period, producing 17 of the first 19 shots and 22-5 overall. But Larraza’s power-play goal at 8:41 was all the Pioneers got behind Marble.
CC regrouped and had a good second period, registering 14 of the 21 shots.
Mike Chambers: ,mchambers@denverpost.com or
