Sometimes you kick the door open, other times it swings back and knocks you over. Saturday night, the latter occurred for Air Force at Magness Arena.
The Falcons showed some signs of weariness coming off Friday night’s victory over Colorado College, and No. 2 Denver made them pay in a 6-0 non-conference rout.
Denver (11-5-4) kept the pressure on Air Force (8-9-3) from the opening puck drop, building up a massive shots-on-goal advantage that eventually led to a four-goal blitz in a span of 2 minutes, 32 seconds midway through the second period.
“I didn’t like our start,” Falcons coach Frank Serratore said. “Denver had a 12-1 shots edge at one point.”
The Falcons closed that gap with a bit of a push in the final 5 minutes, but not before Liam Finlay had given the Pioneers a lead with a backhand goal that hit Billy Christopoulos on the shoulder and bounded out of his reach and into the net.
“It was great for us to get out of the period down 1-0,” Serratore added.
The roof fell in during the second period as the Falcons were outshot 22-3 and assessed penalty after penalty, at one point getting called for seven in a row. Jarid Lukosevicius, who finished with a game-high three points, scored on his own rebound on DU’s seventh overall power play to open the flood gates with 7:43 to play in the period.
The Pioneers’ goals kept coming, with Jaakko Heikkinen firing a bar-down shot from between the circles after DU countered an AFA short-handed rush just 1:10 later. Then Logan O’Connor scored on a rush with 6:02 to play, finishing Christopoulos’ night.
The irony was Christopoulos had kept the Falcons in the game until that point, and he already had made 30 saves when he departed. Freshman Zack LaRocque, who grew up in the Denver area, got the call in relief for the second time this season and was dented for a goal just 51 seconds later when O’Connor had another break into the Falcons zone and DU freshman Ryan Barrow cleaned up a rebound for his first NCAA goal.
The Pioneers finished it with a goal by senior Rudy Junda, again on the power play, with 5:37 to play in the game. The goal was Junda’s first in four seasons.
LaRocque made 10 saves overall.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw a game with such an incredible difference in penalties,” Serratore said of the 13-5 margin. “How many penalties can you kill? How man 5-on-3s? How many shots can you block? All we can control is what we can control.
“Denver is a good team. If you give them or they get, however you want to look at it, that many power plays they can play the Avalanche and most likely win.”
In the end, the Pioneers outshot the Falcons, 46-18. And while Saturday’s goal avalanche was a bitter pill to swallow, Serratore knows the prescription for a healthier Falcons future.
“We’ve got to come out with more spunk like we did against Colorado College,” he said. “There is nothing easy about this, otherwise more people would be doing it. We have a ways to go, but I’m a believer in our players and in our potential.
“Tonight was a tough night, very humbling, but the bottom line is we’re going to be dealt adversity in life, it’s what we do with it. Despite that our players didn’t get chippy and cheap. It was a heartfelt handshake line. You have to give Denver a lot of credit.”
Notable
The Falcons made one change to their lineup, inserting freshman Marshall Bowery on a wing of the third line in place of sophomore Matt Pulver. … Air Force actually held a slight edge in the face-off circle, winning 28 of 55 draws. Brady Tomlak won 9 of 14.
Air Force’s three stars
- Phil Boje. On a rough night for the Falcons’ defense he was even and he blocked six shots.
- Billy Christopoulos. It might seem counter intuitive to recognize a goalie who was pulled, but he stopped 28 of the first 29 shots he faced and 30 of 34 overall. Think what the score would have been if he hadn’t been so solid in the first period.
- Evan Giesler. He had almost a quarter of Air Force’s 18 shots and also finished even.
Up next
The Falcons play host to Mercyhurst in an Atlantic Hockey series at Cadet Arena on Friday (7:05 p.m.) and Saturday (5:05 p.m.).
