In just his second year, University of Denver hockey coach Jim Montgomery has quietly reinstated the Pioneers as a perennial power.
A year after his rebuilding rookie team made an improbable 3-0 conference playoff run to advance to the program’s seventh consecutive NCAA Tournament, the Pioneers are guaranteed to make the national tournament and built to win it all. They are third in the PairWise Rankings, which mimics the method used by the NCAA selection committee to seed its 16-team field.
Led by determined upperclassmen and phenomenal young wingers Trevor Moore and Danton Heinen, Denver is in position to win its second consecutive National Collegiate Hockey Conference Tournament title and obtain a No. 1 NCAA Tournament regional seed. The NCHC Frozen Faceoff (final four) begins Friday in Minneapolis, and if the Pioneers win their semifinal game against Miami (Ohio), they will be assured of a No. 1 regional seed when the 16-team national tournament begins March 26.
Denver (22-12-2) could get a No. 1 seed regardless, but Montgomery isn’t thinking that way.
“Winning the NCHC championship again, and what kind of confidence that can give us, is what we’re focused on,” Montgomery said Sunday, a day after DU completed a NCHC first-round playoff sweep over dangerous Minnesota Duluth. “Last year it was, ‘Thank God we did it.’ But this year it’s a preliminary test for the big dance.”
Denver is the country’s only team to produce 20 wins in each of the last 14 seasons. But not since 2005 — the year the Pioneers won their second consecutive NCAA championship — has Denver had such a senior-laden team with young superstars.
The Pioneers are smart enough to know they would rather not be placed at the West Regional in Fargo, N.D., because top-ranked North Dakota (27-7-3) is assured of playing there as the host. If Denver hangs on to its No. 1 regional seed, it will be the favorite at the Midwest Regional in South Bend, Ind., the East Regional at Providence, R.I., or the Northeast Regional in Manchester, N.H.
“We’re trying to be a No. 1 seed, so we get the easiest opponent possible in the first round,” Montgomery said. “North Dakota is not a scary team, just solid. They don’t wow you or overwhelm you, but they’re solid. We’d rather be a No. 1 seed too.”
Mike Chambers: mchambers@denverpost.com or
