Forward-fueled Pioneers roll to pretty and powerful victory
DENVER 7, ST. CLOUD STATE 2
A night after trading chances in a track meet that required overtime against St. Cloud State, the topranked University of Denver dominated the Huskies on Saturday behind freshman forwards Liam Finlay and Henrik Borgstrom.
Finlay, a 5-foot-8, 150-pound speedster from Kelowna, British Columbia, had three goals before the end of the second period, and the Finnish-born Borgstrom had what probably will hold up as the goal of the year. Senior forwards Matt Marcinew and Emil Romig also scored on “senior night” in the Pioneers’ 7-2 rout at Magness Arena to conclude their regularseason home schedule.
Finlay entered the game with just three goals in 27 games but struck three times from the gritty areas in front or beside the crease. His goals gave DU leads of 1-0, 4-1 and 6-1.
“It was fun. Our whole team played so well,” Finlay said. “I have to give credit to my linemates (Dylan Gambrell and Evan Janssen) — they gave me some pretty easy goals. But it was awesome.”
The 6-3 Borgstrom — who was a 2016 first-round pick of the Florida Panthers — made it 3-0 with a twisting, acrobatic play through NHL-drafted defenseman Will Borgen and wrist shot over the shoulder of goalie Jeff Smith.
“I made this weird move, I don’t know,” Borgstrom said. “I tried to pull it back, like toe-dragging it, and I saw the D had his legs open so I decided to slide it through. The goalie had his hands down, so it was easy to chip it upstairs.”
Borgstrom now has a teamleading 17 goals in 28 games; he missed six games because of illness and playing for Finland’s world junior team.
“What that guy is capable of doing — I mean, that’s not the first time we’ve seen it, but it might be the prettiest goal that we’ve seen him finish on,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said of Borgstrom. “But he’s done it against Omaha, Arizona State — where he scores a goal and everybody in the building is like, ‘Did I just witness that?’ As much as the confidence it gives us, it zaps the confidence of the other team, because they know they have to play against him.”
Denver (24-6-4, 16-3-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference) beat St. Cloud State 4-3 in OT on Friday and has now won nine consecutive games. The Pioneers’ fourth straight NCHC series sweep has them within inches of clinching their first Penrose Cup as conference regular-season champions. They lead secondplace Minnesota Duluth by four points heading into next weekend’s final two games: DU visits Nebraska Omaha, and UMD is at third-place Western Michigan.
“We’re really excited,” DU captain Will Butcher said of the series finale in Nebraska. “We’re all focused on it — all the focus is on the Penrose Friday night.”
Winning the Penrose Cup for DU would set the stage for an NCHC best-of-three playoff series against last-place Colorado College beginning March 10 at Magness Arena.