The University of Denver hockey team crossed two time zones to reach its NCAA hockey regional in Springfield, Mass.
There, the top-seeded Pioneers met a fourth-seeded UMass Minutemen squad that needed to drive approximately 26 miles to arrive at MassMutual Center for Thursday afternoon’s win-or-go home affair.
Yet somehow, the Pios never ran out of gas.
In a back-and-forth marathon that featured two brilliant performances in net, forward Tristan Broz slipped a wrist shot into the right side of the goal to send DU to a 2-1 double-overtime victory that left a partisan UMass crowd stunned.
The game-winner put the Pioneers (29-9-3) a win away their 19th Frozen Four bid, with all that’s standing between them and a trip to St. Paul, Minn., a date with Maine or Cornell on Saturday (2 p.m. MDT) in Springfield.
“It wasn’t easy,” Broz told the ESPN2 broadcast after the win. “That was a heck of a hockey game and (UMass) gave us everything they had.”
Of course, Broz wouldn’t have even have had a chance at the game-winner were it not for the play of goaltender Matt Davis in net. The junior turned away 46 shots, including several at close range, and somehow managed to stay in the game after appearing to injure himself doing the splits in the second OT.
“It felt like they could have had five or 10 goals there,” Broz said of UMass. “… (Davis) is a warrior and we love him.”
DU entered the regional as the No. 3 overall seed in the 16-team NCAA Tournament bracket and played like it early on, putting up a 10-5 advantage in shots on goal in the first period.
That ended up being the only regulation period the Pios outshot the Minutemen (20-14-3), as the nation’s top scoring team (4.85 goals per game) struggled to get one past UMass goaltender Michael Hrabal (41 saves) and went 0 for 2 on the power play.
Freshman defenseman Boston Buckberger got the Pioneers on the board 5:12 into the second period with a wrist shot from near the blue line for a 1-0 advantage. The momentum shifted soon after that, however, as UMass peppered the DU net (14-7 shots-on-goal advantage in second) and Liam Gorman scored the equalizer on a scramble in front of the net 12:52 into the period.
The two teams traded power play opportunities in the third, with Davis turning away a pair of point-blank chances for the Minutemen to help send the game to overtime.
Hrabal (41 saves) was nearly Harris’ equal, stopping several prime scoring chances for the Pios in the extra sessions, including one from junior forward Jack Devine in the first OT that was right on the doorstep.
It was back and forth throughout the two overtimes (19-19 shots on goal) until Broz scored the deciding tally, wheeling around and firing off a wrister that got past Hrabal thanks in part to DU forward Sam Harris’ screen in front of the crease.
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