Coming into the NCAA Tournament on a heater, the University of Denver is within shouting distance of college hockey history.
Now all the Pioneers have to do is beat a few teams in their own backyard.
DU earned the top seed in its regional bracket two time zones away in Springfield, Mass., beginning with a matchup against UMass on Thursday. The Pioneers, fresh off an NCHC Tournament title, are four wins away from claiming their 10th national championship and breaking an all-time title tie with Michigan in the process.
“We certainly feel good about where our game’s at,” DU head coach David Carle said. “We’ve been building, and we feel like we’ve been playing playoff hockey for eight to 10 weeks now … and we’re certainly confident going into the tournament.
“I liked our killer instinct (in the NCHC Tournament). We ended three teams’ seasons during the matter with sweeping (Minnesota) Duluth here, beating St. Cloud, and then beating Omaha (in the championship) ended (Colorado College’s) season. Having that attitude about you is really important, and now we need to try to do it again this Thursday against UMass.”
To advance to the Frozen Four that begins April 11 in St. Paul, Minn., DU will need to win two games in a road environment that won’t be truly neutral. No. 4 seed UMass is about a 30-minute drive from the MassMutual Center in Springfield.
Should DU get past the Minutemen, they’ll take on the winner of Maine and Cornell, both of whom are within a four- or five-hour bus ride of the arena. But Carle isn’t focused on the fact that DU got the short end of the stick in the neutral-site regional format that’s been college hockey’s postseason setup since 2003.
“At the end of the day, we were going to play a good team somewhere (regardless),” Carle said. “At the very least, I know it will be a good atmosphere, and that’s something that’s rare in this format, so we’re looking forward to that.”
The format is scheduled to continue through 2026, and schools are currently bidding on regional sites through 2028. DU will be hosting in Loveland at the Budweiser Events Center in 2026 and is also bidding to host there in ’27 and ’28, though the format could change in those latter two years if the “bubbling of a conversation (for home-site regionals)” continues.
“I’ve been pretty vocal on that (change),” Carle said. “I believe it should be a three-week tournament, get rid of the bye week (before the Frozen Four), play a single game the first week where top eight host the bottom eight. Week two, top four host bottom four, and then have the Frozen Four as is (at a neutral site). So the same amount of games, but get to a home site right away.”
Frequent flyer miles aside, DU (27-9-3) is focused on continuing the momentum from winning its third NCHC Frozen Faceoff title last weekend — the program’s 18th conference tournament championship overall counting 15 prior tournament wins in the WCHA. The Pios are making their 15th appearance in the NCAAs (discounting the 2020 COVID year) since 2008.
In the NCHC Tournament, DU outmuscled Minnesota Duluth in the quarterfinals, winning by scores of 4-0 and 5-2 at Magness Arena. Then the Pioneers rallied from four one-goal deficits to beat St. Cloud State in overtime, 5-4, at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul. In that same building, DU rattled off four straight goals the next night to beat Omaha 4-1 for the title.
“That OT game (and two other comebacks) in the NCHC tourney was huge for us to show we could play those types of games, win those types of games,” freshman defender Zeev Buium said. “That was a big step for our whole team and that was a main message throughout the whole tournament: We wanted to show each other what we could do in a big game and games that mean something, to win a trophy.”
The Pioneers have lost only one game since Feb. 3: a 4-3 setback at Colorado College on March 8. Outside of that, DU has been surging, largely thanks to what senior captain and forward McKade Webster called a “kick in the butt” that came amid the nadir of the team’s regular season at the end of January and first weekend of February.
In that period, DU got swept on the road by rival North Dakota while getting outscored 9-4, then took another one on the chin the next weekend via a 7-2 loss to Western Michigan at home.
“Carle’s not a guy who usually gets amped up quickly, but he definitely got into us a bit after that,” Buium said. “The biggest message was playing for the logo more, and inside the (locker) room, McKade Webster had some things to say that stuck with us. The last few weeks, we’ve shown up for that and played the best we can.”
The Pios managed to find their footing despite losing a key offensive piece in Massimo Rizzo. The junior forward missed the last 12 games with a lower-body injury, and Carle said it’s “highly doubtful” he returns during the NCAA Tournament.
Minus Rizzo, DU’s other catalysts have found a late-season rhythm. Junior forward Jack Devine leads the team (and is tied for third in the nation) with 27 goals this season, the most tallies by a DU player since 2006. On the other end, goalie Matt Davis posted a pair of career-long shutout streaks over the past five weeks.
Throw in the play of Webster (two goals in the Frozen Faceoff championship and named the Most Outstanding Player of the tournament) and Buium (team-best 37 assists, and second in scoring with 48 points), and DU appears primed to get payback against UMass for the way the team’s first NCAA Tournament meeting went.
In that game in 2019, future Avs superstar Cale Makar (one assist) helped lead the Minutemen to a 4-3 overtime win that ended DU’s season in the Frozen Four semifinals. The teams have met eight times overall, with DU owning a 5-3 advantage in the series.
“There’s familiarity there, and you don’t always get that going into the NCAA Tournament,” UMass head coach Greg Carvel said. “We know they’re an extremely good team, the top offensive team in the country (with 4.85 goals per game). High-end players, well-coached, but we’ve played them many times so I’m looking forward to it.”
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