No. 4 Denver (11-5-4, 5-3-2-1 NCHC) at Miami (8-8-2, 3-4-1 NCHC)

Friday at 5:35 p.m. and Saturday at 5:05 p.m.

Radio/TV: 1600 AM / NCHC.tv (subscription)

Series: Denver leads 12-10-2 after going 2-0-2 last season, including winning both games at Goggin Ice Center.

Overview

The Pioneers resume NCHC play with only their third league road trip of the season to date. The first two were sweeps – on the wrong side at Western Michigan and on the plus side at Minnesota Duluth. This series seems to set up to be closer to the low-scoring games in Duluth than the offensive eruption in Kalamazoo. The Pioneers’ freshmen are gaining notice – Kohen Olischefski was the NCHC’s rookie of the week, while Jaakko Heikkinen was the conference’s rookie of the month for December. The irony of this is another freshman, defenseman Ian Mitchell, has been one of DU’s steadiest players all season and is among the top-scoring freshmen defensemen in Division I with 14 points.

Denver update

For all of the anxiety about DU’s play in December, the Pioneers ultimately went 4-2-2, albeit against a weaker schedule than November’s (WMU, St. Cloud, North Dakota), when they went 3-3. … Given that Miami is the second-most penalized team in D-I, Denver’s power play (26.3 percent, third overall) has picked a good time to gain steam. The Pioneers have seven PPGs in their past four games, including three this past Saturday on 11 tries against Air Force. Henrik Borgstrom (six PPGs), Jarid Lukosevicius (five) and Troy Terry (four) do the most damage a man up, but the second unit, which includes Heikkinen and Olischefski, as well as Liam Finlay, Colin Staub and defenseman Michael Davies also has been making some noise recently. … Borgstrom (26 points, 13 goals), Terry (25, 8) and Dylan Gambrell (22, 6) still reside among the top D-I scorers. … Tanner Jaillet has made 18 of 20 starts for DU and has numbers of 10-4-4, a .920 save percentage and a 2.21 goals against average. He had or combined on three shutouts in December. Overall, the Pioneers are 12th in defense, allowing just 2.40 goals per game. … Denver has the fifth-most proficient offense (3.55), more than a half a goal per game more than Miami’s.

Miami update

The RedHawks have bounced back from a four-game winless streak in early November to go 4-2-1 since. They’ve scored exactly three goals per game in that stretch and have tightened up on defense, allowing 2.56 gpg in that span. … Miami is excellent on special teams. It’s power play is right behind DU’s, sixth at 25.6 percent, and even though it takes a lot of penalties, it kills them off at an 82.7 percent rate, not far behind DU’s 84.3 percent clip. …  Sophomore goaltender Ryan Larkin gave DU fits at Magness Arena last season, and he’s started every game – and played all but 9 minutes this season – for the RedHawks. He has .893 and 2.69 numbers. … Four players do much of the offensive damage for Miami, and two of them are defensemen – senior Louie Belpedio and junior Grant Hutton. Belpedio has 17 points, including six goals, and Hutton has eight goals – tied for most among defensemen – and 13 points. The duo also has nine power-play goals, six by Hutton. Sophomore forward Gordie Green leads the team with 22 points and nine goals, while  junior front-liner Josh Melnick has 17 and seven.

How it could go down

Which DU team shows up? That has been the question all season. The one that showed up vs. Air Force, with or without all of the power plays, was pretty impressive. The Pioneers got on top of their opponent early and stayed on top all game. If that squad made the trip to Oxford – an environment the DU players love to visit – look out. Still, the RedHawks’ recent improvement and the fact they tend to play DU tough means this will be a challenge for the Pioneers.

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