Air Force Academy
Denver
15th-ranked Denver beats Air Force, 7-1
12/31/2011 12:00:00 AM | Men's Ice Hockey
Dec. 31, 2011
U.S. AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. - Drew Shore and Luke Salazar each scored two goals as 15th-ranked Denver beat Air Force, 7-1, in a non-conference college hockey game, Saturday, Dec. 31, at a sold out Cadet Ice Arena.
Denver, 10-7-3 overall, opened the scoring just over four minutes into the first period. DU defensemen John Lee forced a turnover at the Air Force blue line and Ty Loney picked it up in the zone. After skating around an Air Force defenseman, Loney zipped a wrister over the shoulder of Stephen Caple for a 1-0 lead. The Pioneers capitalized on the first Air Force penalty as Drew Shore scored his 11th of the season on the power play. Shore made a pass across the goal mouth to Loney on the right side. Caple got a piece of Loney's shot and it trickled along the goal line. Shore punched it in for a 2-0 lead at 15:05.
DU added two more goals in the second period to extend its lead to 4-0. Early in the period, Drew Shore fired a puck off the back wall and Luke Salazar collected it on the weak side and scored his fourth of the season. His slap shot came from a tough angle near the goal line on the right side. Denver scored its second power play goal of the game at the 12:02 mark. Loney sent the puck behind the net to Nick Shore. Nick found his older brother Drew in the slot who wristed his second of the game and 12th of the season over the shoulder of Caple.
To start the third period, sophomore goaltender Jason Torf replaced Caple in the net, seeing his first action since he injured his groin on Oct. 8 against Michigan State. Air Force cut the DU lead to 4-1 at the 5:49 mark of the third period. Dan Weissenhofer led the rush up ice and his shot was deflected in front. Paul Weisgarber batted in the rebound on the weak side for his second of the season. Just over a minute later, DU's Dustin Jackson was called for two minor penalties and Josiah Didier was called for hooking all at the same time and the Falcons had two minutes of a 5-on-3. Air Force was unable to score on the two-man advantage, but during the remainder of the 5-on-4, Scott Mayfield was called for grasping the facemask and the Falcons had another 1:38 of 5-on-3 action. AFA pulled its goaltender for a 6-on-3 advantage, but was still unable to score. After all the penalties expired, the Falcons kept Torf on the bench and Denver scored an empty-netter as Salazar scored from the red line at 11:27. Chris Knowlton scored at 13:37 and Joey LaLeggia scored at 16:07 to make up the final margin.
Air Force was 0-for-7 on the power play while Denver was 3-for-4. AFA outshot DU, 32-26, in the game. Caple started the game and made 13 saves while allowing four goals in the first two periods. Torf played the third period and had six saves while allowing two goals. Juho Olkinuora made 28 saves while allowing one goal in 56 minutes. Zach Hope played the final four minutes and made three saves.
"They dominated the special teams and dominated the goaltending and that was a good old-fashioned butt kicking," head coach Frank Serratore said. "They got the lead early and they were able to play their game. The biggest part of the game was when we had two 5-on-3s with the score 4-1and we failed to score. We had some good shots but their goalie, he's a big kid, made some very good and timely saves. We haven't been beaten like this in a long time. This was both humbling and embarrassing. I'm not getting down on the guys. If I'm going to blame anyone, I'll blame myself for giving them almost month off and then facing two top 15 teams. We like to give the guys a nice break and we feel that they are fresher in February and March. That is the formula we have used the last few years and it has worked. Last night we showed what we are capable of and tonight showed that we still have some work to do."
Air Force, 10-5-2 overall, returns to Atlantic Hockey action next weekend with a two-game road series at Holy Cross, Jan. 6-7, at 7:05 p.m. ET in Worcester, Mass. --30--
