Scoring:
1:23- Joey LaLeggia from Zac Larraza 2-0 Denver
LaLeggia skated into the zone and fired a high wrist shot from just inside the blue line. It appeared that Cook didn't see the puck cleanly off his stick and was beaten to the glove side.
3:28- Shawn Ostrow from Paul Phillips and Dan Doremus 3-0 Denver
A Paul Phillips shot from the point was deflected by Ostrow in the circles and over Cook's shoulder.
15:43 Jean-Paul LaFontaine unassisted. 3-1 Denver
After a long stretch in the Denver zone, a wraparound attempt by LaFontaine went off the skate of a Denver defender and into the goal.
16:57 Eriah Hayes assisted by Jean-Paul LaFontaine and Brett Knowles 3-2 Denver
Another scramble in front of the net bounced off some bodies and slowly trickled into the net past Brittain.
Notes:
Stephon Williams replaced Cook after the third goal. The second goal was the only really bad one. The Mavericks were likely looking for a change in momentum after digging a deep hole early in the second period.
Around the midway mark of the period, Minnesota State picked up their intensity with some heavy pressure around the DU goal, but couldn't get a puck to bounce into the net. That's the advantage to being a team like Denver that can rely on skill plays to score goals, whereas MSU has to rely more on grinding out dirty goals. The Mavericks eventually got one back when J-P LaFontaine scored one of those ugly goals, bringing the Mavericks at least within striking distance, and then followed it up with another grinding goal to make this a very interesting hockey game heading into the third period.
Denver drew a penalty for the second time tonight with a pretty obvious dive. There was definitely some frustration with that on the MSU bench, especially since the Mavericks had just 31 seconds of power play time of their own at that point. It could be an ugly third period if the power play advantage doesn't even out at least a little bit.
Denver used their timeout after an icing call during a long shift in their zone. it seems like that is becoming more common practice by teams around the league.
It's a game of inches. Minnesota State's second goal was almost disallowed due to a hand pass, but J-P LaFontaine was able to barely get his stick on the puck, waving off the hand pass before Eriah Hayes redirected the puck towards the net for the goal.