Denver Pioneers
Season record: 27-11-3
How they got to Las Vegas: Won the Loveland Regional, beating Cornell 5-0 and Western Michigan 6-2
Top players: F James Reeder (10-23-33), F Rieger Lorenz (16-18-34), D Erik Pohlkamp (18-21-39), F Sam Harris (15-19-34)
Top goalie: Johnny Hicks (14-0-1, 1.12, .958)
Why they’ll win the national championship: Hicks has been on an unreal tear to start his college hockey career, as the freshman is yet to lose a game. He became the Pioneers’ go-to guy between the pipes in
December, and although one player does not a team make, there’s no debating that Denver has been a different team with Hicks back there.
Why they won’t win the national championship: Denver might not win one game at this Frozen Four, never mind two. That’s less to do with the Pioneers themselves, and more to do with who they’re playing right away. Michigan is the national No. 1 seed, and is looking to end a national-title drought that dates back to 1998.
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It’s almost getting to the point where, at the start of a given season, we can pencil in Denver as a Frozen Four participant.
Almost.
With 10 national championship banners already hanging inside Denver’s Magness Arena, the Pioneers are about to make their program’s 21st Frozen Four appearance and ninth this century. More to the point, it’ll be their fourth this decade, and their third in three years.
Eighth-year coach David Carle knows playing college hockey in April like the back of his hand, but not everyone in front of him on Denver’s bench does. Ten freshmen make up much of the Pioneers’ roster, and after starting the season 3-3-1 and hitting another rough patch later on, DU now hasn’t lost a game since Jan. 23.
A big reason for their run since then is one of Denver’s freshmen: goaltender Johnny Hicks. Stepping in for another DU newcomer, Quentin Miller, Hicks has been stellar since late-January series with St. Cloud
State.
“We were on a seven-game winless streak, Quentin had just stood on his head at North Dakota to get us a big win on that Saturday night (Jan. 17), then we lose (six days later) to St. Cloud, Quentin gets injured
two or three minutes into the game on Saturday, and now we’re coming in with this really unheralded freshman,” Carle said. “We shut out St. Cloud 6-0, he comes back and sweeps Duluth, and kind of the rest is history.
“It was a precarious situation that he came into, and obviously we have all the confidence in the world in him,” Carle continued. “But to come in at the moment he did, to be unfazed, to be the calmest person in the room, I think speaks to his preparation and his focus and his attention to detail, and certainly he’s been excellent for us through the stretch run.”
Of course, this was never going to be the exact same Denver team that won its most recent national titles in 2022 and 2024. Big-time college prospects often leave early for the professional ranks, and the
Pioneers haven’t been immune to that. But lo and behold, a DU team with five 30-point scorers and 17 in double figures has kept Carle’s program humming along into very familiar territory.
“It’s really been by committee,” Carle said. “The group has really good depth, but you don’t know who’s going to step up on a given night. What’s been the same (to recent DU teams that made Frozen Fours), I
think, is the quality of leadership and the transformation from the first half to the second half.
“You need to have teams that have a relentless approach and are trying to get better and improve, and want to be playing their best hockey come March and April, and have this unwavering attitude of wanting to have that killer instinct and want to send teams home, continue on and chase big trophies,” he continued.