Inside College Hockey | 2005 NCAA Frozen Four

April 6, 2005
NCAA Frozen Four
Mannino Gets the Call

By Joe Gladziszewski

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Goaltending platoons can work. The University of Denver has proven that much so far this season. Glenn Fisher, a sophomore from Edmonton, and Peter Mannino, a freshman from Farmington Hills, Mich., have shared the goaltending duties and helped lead the Pioneers to the Frozen Four.

The alternate goalie pattern continued through the most vital weekend of the regular season, the WCHA playoffs, and the NCAA Northeast Regional. But it remained to be seen whether that pattern would hold when the Pioneers take the ice on Thursday. It's Fisher's turn to start, but Mannino has had incredible success against Colorado College. That left the Denver coaching staff with a dilemma.

If you believe in patterns and habit, the choice is easy in favor of Fisher. If you tend to favor statistics and matchups, Mannino's the guy. George Gwozdecky and the staff weighed a number of factors and decided to go with Mannino as the starting goalie in Thursday's national semifinal (2 p.m., ESPN2).

Mannino started all three of Denver's wins against Colorado College and posted shutouts in the two most recent meetings. In DU's two losses against CC, Fisher was the starting goalie.

Those facts make Mannino seem like an easy choice, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

"Our skaters this season, have performed better on the second night of a series," Gwozdecky said. "That's been fairly consistent throughout the season."

It sets up a chicken-egg argument. Were Mannino's better numbers a reflection of his team's excellent play on Saturdays? Or did the team play better because of higher confidence in the freshman backstop?

To listen to Gwozdecky, he believes the former is true.

"That was not lost on us. It was something, in fact, that I spoke about quite a bit this year. With all due respect to Peter and how well he has played, there's no question that the majority of the games that we have played very effectively have been played the second night of the series," he said.

His thoughts are supported by the team's record when Mannino starts to begin a weekend. He's done so twice, and DU lost both games, 6-2 on Oct. 15 at Boston College and 5-4 on Nov. 13 against Minnesota.

Players in the Colorado College dressing room think differently.

"It does seem like they do play a little tougher in front of Mannino. It doesn't seem like we get as many shots on them," Tiger junior forward Aaron Slattengren said.

At all levels of hockey, the word that's thrown around most when discussing a team's or player's success is confidence. It's that confidence that makes Denver a better team when Mannino is backstopping the Pioneers. It's that lack of confidence that comes when a netminder has blanked your team for seven straight periods and more than 143 minutes of hockey that Colorado College will have to overcome.

"Mannino has had tremendous success against us the previous two times we've played, over six periods of shutout hockey," senior forward Scott Polaski said. "That's a little bit of a concern but I don't think we're too worried about it because it doesn't really matter. We can't choose who the goalie is."

Thursday afternoon's game will provide a definite answer to the chicken-egg argument, as Mannino gets the first start of the weekend for the first time since mid-November. Throwing away matchups and trends, the choice was ultimately based on which goalie gives Denver the best chance to beat Colorado College, and the Pioneers have chosen Peter Mannino.