CC Sweeps DU With A 3-1 Win

(above) Chris Butler scored DU's lone goal against CC.
From DU Website
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The No. 5 Colorado College Tigers (26-9-1, 21-6-1 WCHA) used goals by Mike Testwuide, Matt Overman and Bill Sweatt, and 27 saves from No. 2 goaltender Drew O’Connell in a 3-1 win over No. 7 Denver Pioneers (22-13-1, 16-11-1 WCHA) tonight before 7,780 fans at World Arena.

CC completes the two-game sweep of DU and finishes first in the WCHA, while DU places third with its third consecutive loss. No. 3 seed Denver will host No. 8 seed Minnesota Duluth in the first round of the WCHA playoffs in a best 2-of-3 series March 14-16.

“Give CC credit for the sweep and a fine regular season,” DU head coach George Gwozdecky said. “We had our chances this weekend, but couldn’t capitalize. We’ll be ready for Minnesota Duluth next weekend.”

Testwuide and Overman staked CC to a 2-0 lead after the first period. Testwuide scored on the power-play at 12:09 on a feed from Andreas Vlassopoulos, while Overman followed in his own rebound 90 seconds later.

After a big save by O’Connell on a shot from the low slot by Kyle Ostrow (Calgary, Alberta), CC made it 3-0 with a goal from Sweatt at 2:37 of the middle stanza. DU freshman Marc Cheverie (Cole Harbour, Nova Scotia) spelled senior Peter Mannino (Farmington Hills, Mich.) and made 15 saves the rest of the way.

Chris Butler’s (St. Louis, Mo.) power-play goal at 3:02 of the third made the final 3-1. Rhett Rakhshani (Huntington Beach, Calif.) and Tyler Bozak (Regina, Saskatchewan) earned assists on the goal.

Sweatt led CC with a goal and assist. DU outshot CC, 28-24, and went 1-of-7 on the power play. CC finished 1-of-5 with the man-advantage.

Notes: Denver is sixth in the latest PairWise Rankings...The Pioneers have scored just five goals in their last four games (1-3-0)...DU is 12-8-1 against ranked opponents and 5-9 against teams ranked in the top five of the WCHA standings.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's see..... lapses in defensive coverage, too many fancy passes, awful PP, anyone else sensing a pattern? It's the same crap every weekend. This is not a team poised to make a postseason run.

Twister said...

A crummy weekend for DU, to say the least. DU is now something like 1-6-2 vs CC in the its last 9 meetings. Tough to digest. I remember sitting there and watching the 5-0 shellacking DU put on CC to finish the 2004-2005 season--seems like a century ago.

Still solid in the PWR at #6, but the Pios really need a strong weekend vs Duluth. This is a statement weekend coming up.

Anonymous said...

This team can be so two-faced.

Some nights they look awesome: they are brilliant, they drive to the net, they play with grit, and they match you up well on the D.

Then you have nights like this past series where they waste PP opportunities with obsessive passing, they get lost and run around in their own zone, all their shots come from outside the slot, and they look like they are not putting in 50% effort.

May this humiliation to CC be a lesson for this team. It's a new season now and everyone is starting from scratch. What made this team great at the beginning of the season; the drive, the passion, the effort placed on each of the games... may they find it again.

MagnessMan said...

I think CC was by far the better team both nights. Our biggest problem and it's been the same one since December is poor defense. DU came out on fire for the first ten minutes Saturday and went up 8-1 in shots but just couldn't bury it. CC moves the puck so well. Concerning the PP it looked the same as it has all year.

I agree with 1:13 not a team that's going to make it to Pepsi Ctr but then again nobody thought they would way back in October. I really liked how Chevy played Saturday night. It makes me look forward to the next three seasons.

MagnessMan said...

I also think it's feasible that the Bulldogs could once again knock us out in three. If that happens we drop to a third seed in the tourney which would make it hard to go anywhere. I wonder if George is thinking about starting Chevy.