The Puck Drop: Denver

The NCAA's decision to adjust hockey's national tournament selection criteria resulted in a few preseason shockwaves before the start of the 2025-2026 season. The old methodology - the mythological Pairwise Rankings that helped dictate the mathematical algorithm approximate to the selection committee's process for determining at-large teams - was shelved in favor of a standardized NCAA Power Index capable of removing the final controversial shreds embedded within the former system. Dubbed the initialized NPI, it wouldn't necessarily change the teams headed to the NCAA Tournament, but removing confusion that existed within the Pairwise Rankings certainly couldn't hurt.

A notion of strengthening out-of-conference resumes based on head-to-head wins against common opponents emerged through the early weeks, and No. 9 Boston College almost immediately gained style points by defeating Minnesota in its road series against the Golden Gophers. A win over RPI - meaning Rensselaer - wouldn't hurt BC by adding points against a team likely headed for a lower RPI - meaning Ratings Performance Index - than the bulk of the other opponents, but the win would help divide percentage points if the Engineers managed to earn wins against teams like Harvard, New Hampshire or UMass-Lowell.

On the other hand, a team like Denver would almost absolutely need to win its games against highly-touted opponents. Fresh off a second consecutive trip to the Frozen Four, the Pioneers absorbed a loss to Lindenwood and drew Air Force while avoiding an NPI-impacting result against Bentley. A second game against the independent Lions avoided potential catastrophe for a team still ranked ahead of BC in the national polls, but the future schedule against Northeastern, Alaska-Anchorage and other opponents places Friday's game directly into a national spotlight for the Pioneers' hopeful chances at gaining a top seed in the NCAA Tournament.

To be fair, a non-conference matchup in October isn't supposed to generate that level of heat on the seasonal hot stove, but Denver-BC is packed with the kind of history that brings them full circle for their respective national championship hopes. The two straight eliminations at the hands of the Pioneers stripped the Eagles of a return trip to the Frozen Four in the aftermath of losing in the national championship game, and a loss on Friday could potentially impact Denver in much the same fashion. The straight math doesn't support Denver's run to an at-large bid aside from the NCHC, and a road win in Conte Forum against a team expecting to finish atop the NPI is exactly what the team needs to stabilize the leaks in its early season resume. Understanding how that impacts a whole season - especially since Minnesota is a common opponent and is likewise leaking losses ahead of this week's series against Minnesota-Duluth, a fellow NCHC team - makes this as close to a must-win for Denver as any October-type game.

In a world where fans are trained to look at conference games and the conference tournament, that means Conte Forum is essentially a potential play-in game for a 16-team bracket that's still a lifetime ahead.

Here's what to watch for in the rubber match between the Eagles and Pioneers:

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Weekend Storylines (Letterkenny Edition)

Wayne: H'are ya now?
Katy: Good-n-you?
Wayne: Not so bad.

Neither Boston College nor Denver resembles the team from either the 2024 Frozen Four national championship game or last year's NCAA Regional Final in Manchester, New Hampshire. The Eagles are very publicly without Ryan Leonard, Gabe Perreault, Jacob Fowler, Eamon Powell, Cutter Gauthier, Will Smith - among so many others - and won't face Sean Behrens, Tristan Broz, Shai Buium, Zeev Buium, Massimo Rizzo, Matt Davis, Jack Devine, Carter King, Aidan Thompson or any of the other names that graduated or signed with National Hockey League franchises. The incoming freshmen aren't players who understand how to suit up against one another, and even the current players are in different roles from the ones that aligned with the two high profile head-to-head meetings.

Attempting to paint this game as some type of revenge or callback to the previous two years is therefore impossible, and the head-to-head tale of the tape quickly offers several different identifying factors. The Pioneers, for example, are No. 20 nationally in scoring offense and face a BC team situated three spots lower while stacking a scoring defense that's averaging 1.22 goals per game. Even with the asterisk of having both teams in the early stages of a season, a plus-2 goal differential that trends closer to allowing around one goal per game is a little different compared to the Denver of years past.

Whether it's a good thing or a bad thing is yet to be determined. Goalie Quentin Miller posted a shutout in his last outing against Lindenwood after running 65 minutes of one-goal hockey against Air Force, but the difference in his numbers from Paxton Geisel involved the three-goal game against Lindenwood that came six days after the shutout win over Bentley.

In short, sure, Matt Davis is gone, but it's hard to throw a dart and call Denver a transitioning team. That said, the bawdy numbers are against teams that won't qualify for the national tournament as an independent or need to win their conference outright to gain entry to a regional - a far difference from the Hockey East titan in Chestnut Hill.

Wayne: Pitter patter let's get at 'er.

Western college hockey teams gained a reputation for playing up-and-down, fast-paced hockey over the past couple of seasons. The Big Ten led a march of teams that shoot the puck from the concourse compared to the hard-nosed and rough-and-tumble teams from the east, and the NCHC matched the speed and intelligence by scoring nearly four goals per game over the course of the 2024-2025 season. The eventual national champion from Western Michigan and the defending national champion from Denver sat chief among those teams, which included Arizona State, but the Pioneers seemed to take full advantage of an opponent's mistakes by leading the nation with 46 power play goals.

Percentage-wise, the Pioneers weren't No. 1, but this year's team is off to a significantly slower start compared to Boston College's second-ranked power play unit. Going 2-for-10 in the first four games of the season - especially against lower conference and independent opponents - is borderline alarming, especially since the 4-0 win over Lindenwood didn't require an extra-man goal, though that might actually be a good thing because it meant Denver scored in five-on-five situations.

Either way, something's a miss compared to a penalty kill that hasn't allowed a single power play goal.

Wayne: In the words of the genre-bending Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, 'wake up.'

Denver's natural talent is capable of skating vertically against Boston College, so the Eagles have to find ways to control the puck and wear down a defense that's always capable of clearing its own zone. It's not cute to talk about digging pucks out of the corner or working longer shifts against tired legs, but this is the type of game where BC's physicality and ability beyond the top two lines has a real opportunity to shine.

The top line combinations are always going to find ways to work fast ice, so the key to beating Denver sits more on the later shifts on dirty ice. As the game slows, those depth players who are more geared towards the offensive zone entry and blue line-in should find ways to poke through the defensive unit. That's when the substitution and how lines are deployed comes back into the conversation, especially since there really aren't secrets between these two teams and coaching staffs.

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Question Box

Can BC's power play continue routing an opponent's penalty kill?

BC's power play went scoreless against RPI but is following a trend of alternating games with and without goals. The two goals against Quinnipiac and one power play goal against Minnesota included two goals by Ryan Conmy, so figuring out how to take advantage of situational hockey is a big part of achieving that aforementioned zone time against the Pioneers.

Can Conte impact Denver?

Denver opened the season with a game at a smaller building on base at Air Force before returning home to play Bentley, so the two-game swing to Lindenwood involved first-time road travel for a team that didn't otherwise have to leave its altitude in Colorado. So while approximately 2,000 fans supported Lindenwood in the bowl-shaped Centene Community Ice Center that doubles as the practice arena for the NHL's St. Louis Blues, Denver hasn't yet played in a big game atmosphere with 8,000 fans packing the rafters at Conte Forum. From a travel component, the lights and atmosphere of playing at BC is comparable to playing a North Dakota or Minnesota, and the Pioneers haven't yet touched those heights.

The corollary to that point is that Denver is also 35-15 away from its building, which means that the team is well adapted to playing away from the inherent home ice advantage within the altitude.

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Scoreboard Watching

Conference games are starting to leak into the schedule on a more regular basis this week, and the CCHA joins Hockey East and Atlantic Hockey America this week by scheduling games in October that'll impact the final standings over the course of the season. More specifically, the surprising Augustana team that's still in its relative infancy compared to the rest of college hockey is headed for Bemidji State while Bowling Green heads to Lake Superior State.

That leaves plenty of key non-conference matchups in the chamber of a college hockey run that'll trend towards those games for the next couple of weeks. Sacred Heart's trip to Ohio State is a bit stingy compared to several LIU's trip up to New Hampshire, at least in upset watch and how it could impact a team's chances at the NCAA Tournament, and Quinnipiac's decision to schedule Merrimack could potentially negate the Bobcats' win over BC if the Eagles later defeat the Warriors. In the Midwest, the revival of Minnesota-Duluth's rivalry against Minnesota is a scary type of trap for the Gophers, who are legitimately taking on water in the early part of the season.

On the homefront, UConn's home-and-home with Boston University offers a huge start to the Hockey East calendar while Denver heads to Northeastern on Saturday after Friday's game against BC.

In Atlantic Hockey America, Holy Cross is at Army while Air Force is at RIT, and Bentley raises its championship banner on Friday (teehee!) while hosting Canisius for two games.

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Dan's Non-Hockey Thought of the Week

Big games call for big pregame meals in the Rubin household, and Denver's arrival in Chestnut Hill alongside my triumphant return to a certain Waltham-based institution means that I forced my wife (...politely asked…) to make a home sauce ahead of my long night of work.

It's one of the perks that comes with marrying into a traditional Italian family, but I know enough to stay out of the way when she gets into gear with this stuff because it's serious business. It starts with the old sauce that's defrosted during the previous day because every sauce spiritually adds something to the next sauce…I think. All I know is that she burned a sauce one time and we never spoke about the old sauce ever again. It was like it was vaporized with the thing from Men in Black.

Anyways, it starts with the old sauce going into the pot and continues with a can of tomato sauce, some garlic, some onion, some seasoning and some pork chops. That simmers for a good couple of hours before she starts into the meatballs made from three separate types of meat (beef, pork and veal). Also, an important safety tip, don't tell your mother-in-law that your wife makes a better meatball. I covered this a couple of years ago, and I still haven't lived it down.

Once all of this is done, boil the pasta and add some garlic and butter before tossing the sauce over it. By the time it's cooked, the pork chops have shredded into tender cooked meat, and the meatballs have eventually been baked and dunked in the sauce.

I don't even think I'm giving away some crazy family secret because I'm not allowed to make it. I usually just watch, giggle, occasionally slip myself a spoonful of sauce, and get more giddy as the house smells better and better as the day pushes forward. Calories are captured, it's worth every time I've asked for it…oh, and garlic bread. Have to have garlic bread.

Mangia.

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Pregame Quote and Final Thoughts

I told him that a player on a streak has to respect the streak. -Crash Davis, "Bull Durham"

Adhering to this quote essentially made me a superstitious person. I don't believe in ghouls or goblins or curses (Thank YOU, 2004 Boston Red Sox) so much as I think players and coaches have to respect what's gotten them to a certain point. Whatever they believe in, it's what works. If that means that a player won't wash his socks because there's luck in the dirt, then that makes it true. Also - I couldn't use the rest of that quote from Crash because this is a family show.

I don't believe, therefore, that Denver holds some curse over Boston College. I don't believe that the last two national tournament losses to the Pioneers are the result of some metaphysical *thing* that kept the Eagles from claiming hardware and trophies. I believe that if you believe in it, then it's true. But that's because that's what got you to this point.

In my opinion, the better team wins on Friday night. There won't be a witch's spell or wizard's potion involved, but the team that plays better and executes those 60 minutes is the team that walks out of Conte Forum with the win. Simplistic, yes, but sometimes simple is really what you need.

No. 9 Boston College plays a single game against No. 7 Denver at Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts on Friday night. Puck drop is set for 7 p.m. and can be seen via the ESPN-Plus direct-to-consumer subscription service that's available through the network's family of Internet and mobile device apps.

Players Mentioned

Ryan Conmy

Jacob Fowler

Ryan Leonard

Gabe Perreault

Eamon Powell

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