Colorado College will need to wait at least another year to celebrate with the Gold Pan.

The Tigers came out flying at Magness Arena on Saturday, building an early 2-0 lead that easily could have grown larger, but eventually fell victim to a suspiciously fortuitous shift in momentum that carried the No. 2-ranked University of Denver to a 5-3 victory in the finale of their weekend series. 

With the triumph, Denver retained possession of the hardware awarded annually to whichever team prevails in four regular-season meetings between the arch-rivals. And, although they've beaten each other twice in 2010-11, CC needed to win or tie on Saturday to take the pan away from the Pioneers. 

Three of DU's goals went into the net off of Colorado College players. All of them came after a first-period, extended TV timeout featuring an on-ice address by injured Pioneer Jesse Martin.

The Tigers, who got goals of their own from Mike Boivin, Dakota Eveland and Scott Winkler, dropped to 16-13-1 overall and 10-10 in WCHA play. They remain in the thick of the hunt for a home-ice berth in the first round of the league playoffs, no worse than a tie for sixth place pending the outcome of a late game between Michigan Tech and surging Alaska Anchorage.
 
CC, which snapped Denver's eight-game undefeated streak a night earlier, grabbed a 1-0 lead just 2:34 into Saturday's contest. Freshman winger Krushelnyski found Boivin alone in the left faceoff circle and the sophomore defenseman blasted a one-timer past Pioneers goaltender Sam Brittain. Then, at 4:42, only 11 seconds after an apparent rebound goal by Stephen Schultz was disallowed, Eveland soloed in from the ensuing faceoff to beat Brittain high on the stick side and make it 2-0.

Denver creeped back to even the score with a pair of tallies 1:07 apart late in the opening frame after Martin's appearance near center ice. Freshman center Nick Shore got credit for both goals – the first on a slap shot from the right side that changed direction off the blade of Ryan Lowery's stick, the second on a pass from behind the net that deflected off the skate of Gabe Guentzel.

Freshman left wing Jarrod Mermis and junior right wing Luke Salazar struck within a span of 87 seconds early in the middle stanza, putting DU up 4-2.

After Winkler skated out of the left-side corner to pull the Tigers to within a goal at 13:57 of the period, Drew Shore restored the two-goal cushion at 17:23 when his wrister from the high slot during a Denver power play eluded Joe Howe after deflecting off the body of sophomore defenseman Joe Marciano.

Howe finished with 26 saves in net for CC. Brittain made 36 stops for the Pioneers, who improved to 17-6-5 overall and 13-4-3 in league play.

Colorado College went scoreless on the power play for the third consecutive game.