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, junior forward Tristan Broz slipped a wrist shot into the right corner of the goal to send DU to a 2-1 double-overtime victory.
The win puts the Pioneers (29-9-3) on the doorstep of their 19th trip to the Frozen Four, with all that’s standing between them and a trip to St. Paul, Minn., a date with Maine or Cornell on Saturday in Springfield, Mass.
“It wasn’t easy,” Broz told the ESPN 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, even staying in the game after appearing to injure himself doing the splits on a play in front of his own net in the second OT.
“It felt like they could have had 5 or 10 goals there,” Broz said of UMass. “… (Davis) is a warrior and we love him.”
DU entered the regional the the No. 3 overall seed in the 16-team NCAA bracket and played like it early on, putting up a 10-5 advantage in shots on goal in the first period.
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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 take control of the game.
Freshman defenseman Boston Buckberger got the Pioneers on the board in the second period with a wrist shot from the blue line for a 1-0 advantage 5:12 into the second period.
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 next 12:52 into the period.
The two teams traded power play opportunities in the third period, with Davis turning away a pair of point-blank chances for the Minutemen to help send the game to the extra period.
It was back and forth after that until Broz was able to score the deciding tally, wheeling around and firing off a wrister that was aided by Sam Harris’ screen in front of the net.
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