DENVER — After a decent first 20 minutes on Friday, a stanza where UMD didn’t let Denver hold gobs of puck possession, defended reasonably well, but found itself down 1-0, the wheels came off the ol’ wagon in the middle frame.
Outscored 2-0. Outshot 13-1. And Game 1 of this best of three series was basically over at that point. Denver tacked on a late empty net goal and won 4-0 to put UMD’s season on the brink of closure.
Lots of the same problems, frankly. Plays that could be made were not. There was precious little pushback from UMD’s top players after the Bulldogs fell behind. In fact, 11 of UMD’s 17 shots Friday night came from defensemen, many from distance with little traffic and low odds of beating DU goalie Matt Davis.
That’s right. 12 forwards combined for six shots on goal in a 60 minute game, including eight minutes of power play time where the Bulldogs’ top forwards got plenty of ice time.
Simply put, that is not going to get the job done against anybody, especially a team as strong and deep as Denver.
Now, it’s all on the line. We’ll see if UMD can show the requisite and necessary pushback. Hope so, because the offseason is long enough when it doesn’t start early.
No changes either way. 6:30pm pregame.
Lines?
Lines.
UMD forwards
McMenamin – Loheit – Olson
Steeves – Perkins – Biondi
Menghini – Loney – Bettens
Kleven – Fischer – Johnson
UMD defense
Pionk – Dubinsky
Gallatin – Pierce
Bast – Gotz
Bodnarchuk
UMD goalies
Thiessen – Sandy
Denver forwards
Webster – Broz – Devine
Harris – Thompson – Wright
Lorenz – Cebrian – Matikka
Lemyre – Caponi – Weiermair
Denver defense
Behrens – Buium (Zeev)
Buckberger – Buium (Shai)
Olvestad – Anderson
Achcroft
Denver goalies
Halyk – Caruso – Davis
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