GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- A tied hockey game on Valentine's Day might be as bland as kissing your sister, as far as the University of North Dakota men's hockey team is concerned.

Denver University rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the third period to walk away with officially a 3-3 tie in the finale of the weekend National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC) series tonight at Ralph Engelstad Arena.

The Pioneers picked up the extra point in the NCHC standings by winning the shootout 1-0 Trevor Moore's goal. He was the hero for the Pioneers, scoring twice in regulation play as well as Denver took two of the three standings points available.

The tie leaves North Dakota in a three-way tie with Nebraska-Omaha and Miami of Ohio in the NCHC standngs, all with 35 points and all with six games left to play.

Moore's 15th goal of the season was a killer for UND.

It came five minutes after officials disallowed an apparent goal by UND's Brendan O'Donnell that would have given UND a 4-2 lead. It was the third time in the two games UND had a goal disallowed after review. The official explanation relayed by a referee after the game was that he had intended to blow the whistle before the puck entered the net.

Five minutes after the disallowed goal, Moore, a sophomore left wing from Thousand Oaks, Calif., scored from a sharp angle at 9:03 of the third period. With the blade of his stick on the end line, Moore fired a wrister that caught UND goalie Zane McIntyre on the right shoulder and slipped behind him into the net.

Then Moore, Denver's first shooter in the shootout, scored on a deke of McIntyre. DU goalie Evan Cowley turned back UND's Michael Parks, Luke Johnson and Drake Caggiula, in that order to give Denver the extra shootout point.

"The third period stings a little bit,'' said UND defenseman Keaton Thompson, who scored his first goal of the season on a power play to give UND a 1-0 lead in the first period. "We played well in the overtime. We just couldn't pull it off in the shootout.''

Still, UND kept intact its record of not losing the back end of a series all season. UND improved to 12-0-2 in the second game of a series in boosting its overall record to 20-6-3 and league mark to 11-5-2.

"We were not as sharp in some areas as we'd like to be," UND coach Dave Hakstol said, "but it was a pretty hard-fought game.''

UND did take four of the six points available in the series, but losing a 3-1 lead and a chance for six points hurt.

"We had an opportunity to get another two points tonight,'' Hakstol said. "I think the mentality in our locker room is that we had a chance to close out those two extra points, and we didn't do that.''

UND took a 2-0 lead in the first period on two power-play goals off a 5-minute major on Moore for clipping UND's Caggiula. Thompson threaded a wrist shot just inside the near post at 15:26 to open the scoring, and fellow defenseman Nick Mattson banged home a rebound on the same power play at 15:53 to make it 2-0.

Moore got Denver going with a goal off a Joey LaLeggia feed, nine seconds after UND had killed a DU power play at 3:57 of the second period. Caggiula then split the Denver defense and restored the two-goal cushion at 5:49, with his 13th goal and fourth in the last five games. Denver freshman defenseman Tariq Hammond collected his first college goal from the left point at 3:50 of the third period to make it 3-2.

Then Moore's seeing-eye shot found space in the net, eventually setting up the shootout.

"It's obviously disappointing, going into the third period with a two-goal lead,'' UND captain Stephane Pattyn said. "They came out hard, we knew they would. They're a desperate team, a good team. They're coming into our barn, and you've got a 20-minute game to play. You're going to give it your all. We just didn't take care pucks early in the third -- and it came back and bite us.''

There were plenty of chances both ways, North Dakota finishing with 38 shots on net, just one more than Denver. McIntyre logged 34 saves, Cowley 35 in front of a sellout of 11,789 at The Ralph.

UND converted 2 of 5 chances on the power play, both goals coming off Moore's clipping major. DU was 0-3 on the power play.

North Dakota has a two-game series at Western Michigan coming up next weekend. That's followed by St. Cloud State at home, then Miami on the road as the NCHC race reaches the boiling point.

"I think that's what's expected out of this conference,'' Pattyn said. "I think that's what they expected when they made this league, to get a strong, strong league. And that's what we're seeing this year.''

Game notes: Defenseman Jordan Schmaltz led UND in shots on goal with 5, followed by Caggiula with 4 ... Zac Larraza and rookie Danton Heinen had 5 shots each to lead Denver ... UND had a 37-30 faceoff edge, but Moore's tying goal in the third period came off a lost faceoff by UND in its defensive zone ... Luke Johnson assisted on two of UND's three goals ... The three stars as voted on by the media were Moore, Caggiula and Johnson, in that order.

Virg Foss covered UND hockey for 35 seasons for the Grand Forks Herald until his retirement. He's in his 10th season of reporting on UND home games exclusively for UNDsports.com.