The University of Denver hockey team crossed two time zones to reach its NCAA 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 the longest NCAA Tournament game in DU history, goaltender Matt Davis made a career-high 46 saves and forward Tristan Broz slipped a wrist shot into the right side of the net to send the Pioneers to a 2-1 double-overtime victory that left a partisan UMass crowd stunned.
“I’m just really proud of our team,” DU coach David Carle told reporters after the game. “That’s a game that we in the first half (of the season) hadn’t been forced to play in a lot of. We weren’t comfortable in a game like that.
“… When we talk about growth of our team, it’s playing in hockey games like that.”
The game-winner after more than an hour-and-a-half of ice time (92:28) put the Pioneers (29-9-3) a win away their 19th Frozen Four bid. All that’s standing between them and a trip to St. Paul, Minn., is a date with Cornell on Saturday (2 p.m. MDT) in Springfield.
Of course, Broz wouldn’t have even had a chance at the deciding tally were it not for the play of Davis. The junior netminder made several saves at close range and was brilliant throughout despite appearing to injure himself doing the splits in the second OT.
“It’s been a long journey to get back to this tournament (after getting eliminated early last year),” Broz said. “I think it was just a testament to the culture here at Denver. We stuck together. We haven’t really been in a game like that — 2-1, low-scoring game — but we stuck together. There was no real panic in our group.”
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).
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 goal (14-7 shots-on-goal advantage in second) and Liam Gorman scored the equalizer on a scramble in front of the crease 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 OT. He made a handful more saves after suffering his injury after that.
“I’m all good, just some cramps,” Davis told reporters. “Long game, humid out here, so, yeah, I’m all good.”
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 OTs (19-19 shots on goal) until Broz scored the deciding tally 12:28 into the second extra session, 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. It was Broz’s third game-winning goal of the season.
“We knew we’d have to face a game like this,” Carle said. “We had to do it in ’22 (when DU won its last national title) playing Lowell and Duluth in the Loveland Regional. You get to this time of year everyone’s a great team and inside ice is hard to come by, goals are hard to come by, and I thought both teams were pushed to the limit tonight.”
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