The Denver Pioneers captured their first victory of the 2016-17 season on Friday night, downing the Boston University Terriers by a score of 4-3 at Magness Arena. Denver outshot the highly regarded Terriers by a 35-26 margin on the evening while administering its unique brand of brash physicality upon the opposition for 60 minutes in what was a highly entertaining, combative contest between a pair of top-10 NCAA squads. These two teams will meet again on Saturday night in the series finale at Magness Arena.
“Our team was hard to play against tonight which is what Denver Hockey is all about,” Pioneers head coach Jim Montgomery said after the win. “If we can continue to evolve and play that style effectively we’re going to become a very good team and win a lot of games. It was great to see such a strong effort tonight, especially from our upperclassmen, and hopefully we can replicate this performance tomorrow.”
Evan Janssen earns First Star of the Game honors AND wins the 1st Hard Hat of the season after scoring TWO goals tonight vs. BU! #DUGameDay pic.twitter.com/B6HasDQxqW
— Denver Hockey (@DU_Hockey) October 15, 2016
Denver opened the scoring late in the first period on Friday when senior forward Matt Marcinew redirected a point shot from Will Butcher to the back of Boston University’s net to tally his first marker of the season on the power play. The Pioneers went up 2-0 early in the second period when Anaheim Ducks prospect Troy Terry wired home a low wrist shot and took a 3-0 lead when Evan Janssen buried a nice cross-ice feed from Logan O’Connor a moment later.
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After the visitors scored to cut their deficit to two at the 9:25 mark of the middle frame, Janssen put the Pios back up by three on a bullet of a wrist shot in the 33rd minute of play. Boston U. again pulled back to within a pair of the home team early in the third period when Jordan Greenway jammed a loose puck across Denver’s goal line and got to within immediate striking distance of the Pios when Clayton Keller converted on a shorthanded breakaway. That would be as close as BU would however get as Denver hung on to take the decision by a 4-3 final.
