The No. 7 Denver Pioneers play host to No. 15 Nebraska-Omaha on Friday and Saturday in what could be a preview of a first-round NCHC playoff series.

Season update: Talk about changing fortunes. While DU has rolled to a seven-game win streak and 12-1-3 mark during the second half of the regular season, UNO (18-13-1, 8-13-1 NCHC) has struggled, going 4-10 after a 14-3-1 start. As a result DU has catapulted into seventh in the PairWise Rankings and Omaha has fallen to 13^th – still good enough to make the NCAA Tournament, but with little margin for error. The Mavericks enter the game on a four-game slide after series against NCHC front-runners St. Cloud State and North Dakota.

Last time they played: The Pioneers handed the Mavericks their first two losses at the new Baxter Arena (3-0 and 4-3) in early January and basically turned their season around after an up-and-down first half. Tanner Jaillet tossed a shutout and Will Butcher scored two goals and Blake Hillman one in the first DU victory, while Jaillet made 25 saves and four different forwards (Evan Janssen, Gabe Levin, Danton Heinen and Dylan Gambrell) scored goals. The Pioneers took an early 3-0 lead then gave up two goals in 39 seconds before Gambrell re-extended the lead to 4-2 in the second game.

Offense: The Mavericks feature a deep offense, led by a trio of juniors – captain Jake Guentzel (42 points – ninth nationally – and 17 goals), Austin Ortega (31, 19) and Justin Parizek (28, 20 assists). Thirteen of the next 15 players on their scoring leaders list are freshmen or sophomores. Overall, they score 3.03 goals per game (21^st in D1, and slightly behind DU’s 3.19). Ortega and Fredrik Olofsson, UNO’s top freshman scorer, are both former Colorado Thunderbirds.

Defense: UNO allows 2.91 goals per game, well behind DU’s 2.38. Freshman netminder Evan Weninger (13-6) has gotten the lion’s share of starts recently, and has the best goals-against average (2.40) and save percentage (.924) of the three goalies the Mavericks have used.

Special teams: As you might expect from a team that has slumped, these numbers have dropped. The power play hits at 15.6 percent of the time (21 of 135), which is 37^th out of 60 D1 teams, while the penalty kill is middle of the road (82.3 percent, 32nd). By comparison, both DU’s power play (18.4 percent) and its penalty kill (83.3) sit at 26^th. It boggles the mind to consider where DU would be if its special teams tracked closer to its ranking.

Outlook: I expect the Mavericks to come out charging. They struggle when falling behind early but are nearly unbeatable when they take an early lead (15-1 when leading after one period and 9-0 after two). UNO can’t afford to get swept, and if this really is a preview of a first-round NCHC playoff series, it will want to assert itself this weekend or run the risk of going from a lengthy stay in the top-10 to completely out of the NCAA Tournament. Conversely, it’s tough to see DU not taking care of business this weekend – it still has a shot at the NCHC’s second playoff seed, which would mean Western Michigan comes to Magness Arena next weekend instead of UNO again.

@MagnessMayhem