#15 Maine Upsets #6 Denver 5-2
If you didn't stay up until nearly midnight, you missed the #15 Maine Black Bears beat the #6 Denver Pioneers 5-2 on Friday night, January 2nd in Denver. It was the Pioneers' 1st lost to a ranked opponent this year.
The game was scoreless thru the 1st Period with the Black Bears having a slight 15-12 shot advantage.
In the 2nd Period, Maine scored twice to take a 2-0 lead. With 3:41 gone, Lukas Peterson scored Maine's 1st goal, assisted by Thomas Pichette and Brandon Holt.
Then with 8:44 gone, Sully Scholle scored assisted by Owen Fowler.
With 7:14 left to play in the 2nd Period, Oskar Komarov was whistled for cross checking. Denver called for a coach's challenge, and the referees upgraded the penalty to a 5 minute major. But the Black Bears killed off the major penalty, limiting the Pioneers to just 2 shots on goal!
With 5:12 gone in the 3rd Period, Maine made it 3-0 on a goal by Thomas Pichette, assisted by Justin Poirier.
Denver answered on a power play goal, to make it 3-1.
But the Black Bears scored again, with Pichette's 2nd of the game, assisted by Oskar Komarov and William Gerrior with 10:25 to play.
Denver scored again, 46 seconds later, to make the score 4-2.
With 5 minutes left to play, Denver pulled their goalie, for an extra attacker. But Maine sealed the win, with an empty-net goal, b Brandon Holt, assisted by Max Scott with 59 seconds left to play.
Maine was 0-1 on the power play and Denver was 1-3.
Maine outshot Denver 34-31.Albin Boija was in net for Maine and ended with 29 saves.
Denver and Maine are both 12-7-1. The 2 teams will meet again on Saturday night, January 3rd, with the puck dropping at 8 p.m. Hear the game on 92.9 The Ticket with Jon Shields' call of the game, with the pregame starting at 7:30 p.m.
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