All is not lost.
Colorado College won't be home for the opening round of the WCHA playoffs next week, but the Gold Pan is still up for grabs.
After a gutsy 2-1 upset of No. 1-ranked University of Denver on Friday at DU's Magness Arena, the Tigers can retain possession of the coveted trophy with a tie or another win in tonight's regular-season finale in Colorado Springs.
CC, which snapped a four-game losing skid with the triumph, extended its undefeated streak against its arch-rival at Magness to five (2-0-3) consecutive contests spanning the last two years. In fact, the Pioneers have won only once (1-4-4) in the last nine showdowns on their home ice dating back to the 2005-06 campaign.
By prevailing on Friday, Colorado College spoiled league champion Denver's post-game celebration with the MacNaughton Cup and clinched a sixth-place finish in the WCHA standings. The Tigers, now 18-14-3 overall and 12-12-3 in conference play, also moved up several notches to No. 16 in the all-important
Pairwise rankings.
They got a sensational performance in net by freshman
Joe Howe, who finished with 25 saves, along with key tallies off the sticks of
Nick Dineen and
Bill Sweatt, to end DU's 10-game winning streak. Ten of Howe's stops, as well as a diving block inside the goalmouth by senior defenseman
Nate Prosser in the final 10 seconds, came in the third period when the Pioneers battled desperately to pull even.
Sweatt's power-play goal, set up by
Mike Testwuide and
Rylan Schwartz at 16:03 of the middle frame, proved to be the game winner. Camped to the left of DU goaltender Marc Cheverie, Sweatt was able to pick up a loose puck after Testwuide redirected a shot by Schwartz from the high slot on the opposite side.
Dineen scored at 8:22 of the first period, knocking his own rebound past Cheverie after his initial attempt was blocked by a Pioneer defender.
Addison DeBoer and
Kris Fredheim earned assists as CC grabbed an early 1-0 lead.
Denver tied the score at 1:05 of the second stanza when Patrick Wiercioch beat Howe from the left faceoff circle after taking a pass from Rhett Rakhshani during an odd-man rush.
