After Friday’s Game 1 victory over Minnesota Duluth, University of Denver coach Jim Montgomery was proud of his Pioneers. They played well, he said, but 19-year-old wingers Trevor Moore and Danton Heinen could have played better.
DU got more from Moore and help from Heinen in Saturday’s Game 2, with both young stars scoring to lead the Pioneers to a 4-0 victory and a sweep of the National Collegiate Hockey Conference playoff series at Magness Arena.
“There’s a new intensity, a new level of speed when it comes to the playoffs and great players adjust real quickly. I thought those two were really impressive tonight,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said of Moore and Heinen, his top two scorers. “It bodes well for the future but I thought our senior class led us again, with their passion and effort. It was a great way to send them off in their last game at Magness.”
Sophomore goalie Evan Cowley, also 19, produced a 35-save shutout in his first career playoff start. Moore, Heinen and Cowley are Denver’s three youngest players.
Denver was outshot 7-0 to begin the game but slowly took command.
“Being up 1-0 after the first period, when they probably outplayed us, was huge for us,” Montgomery said. “It’s a great team, UMD, they’re going to get healthy and be a team to be reckoned with. I don’t want them in our (NCAA regional) bracket.”
Moore’s turnaround wrist shot trickled in behind goalie Kasimir Kaskisuo late in the first period and Heinen beat the Finnish netminder early in the second, flashing the skills that made him a 2014 Boston Bruins draftee. Senior center Matt Tabrum made it 3-0 at 12:38 of the second and the Pioneers added an empty-net goal from Joey LaLeggia, a Hobey Baker Award candidate.
Denver (22-12-2), the inaugural NCHC Tournament champion, will defend its crown at next weekend’s Frozen Faceoff at the Target Center in Minneapolis before obtaining a possible No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed March 22, the day after all conference tournaments are completed.
Minnesota Duluth (20-15-3) will sit out the conference finals but also obtain an NCAA berth. The Bulldogs, who have played the country’s most difficult schedule, entered the series third in the PairWise Rankings, and DU was eighth. Afterward, UMD was sixth and DU third.
The top four PairWise teams will get NCAA No. 1 regional seeds.
Denver will open against St. Cloud State or Miami (Ohio) in Minneapolis on Friday.
“The journey has started off well in the second season and we got to keep that momentum up,” Montgomery said. “No matter if we play Miami or St. Cloud in the semifinals, we know it’s going to be a tough opponent. But that’s the NCHC.”
Mike Chambers: mchambers@denver- or
