Denver should give the schedule-maker a small pat on the back. Whoever it is gave the Pioneers a mix of breathing room and challenges to help mold a team with 20 underclassmen.

The Pioneers, who enter the regular season ranked No. 9 in the USCHO.com poll and No. 11 in the USA Hockey/USA Today poll, catch a bit of a break early before embarking upon what likely will be their toughest stretch of the season. A similar scenario plays out in the second half.

DU won’t leave the state until the second week in November, when it heads to No. 6 St. Cloud State. 

2018-19 SEASON PREVIEW SERIES

Part 2: Denver’s roster by the numbers

Part 3: Denver’s most indispensable players

Until then, the Pioneers only travel down Interstate 25 for Friday’s season opener at Air Force before a home game against Alabama-Huntsville and a home series vs. Alaska-Fairbanks the following weekend. A weekend off precedes the NCHC opener, also at Magness Arena, against No. 19 Western Michigan. UAH was 12-23-2 last season, and fellow WCHA member UAF was 11-22-3. Western is highly skilled but also was one of the most penalized teams in D-I hockey a season ago.

That start should help a young team that will need some time to continue mastering new coach David Carle’s systems, determine who best fits where and build some continuity. All of those things will be necessary come the second weekend in November, when the schedule gets real interesting, real fast.

The St. Cloud trip on Nov. 9-10 kicks off an extremely challenging three-week schedule that includes a visit from defending national champion Minnesota-Duluth and No. 5 Providence the next two weeks. After another week off, the Pioneers travel to No. 11 North Dakota before a three-week Christmas break.

As it stands now, that’s 10 consecutive games against ranked teams, all of which could be NCAA Tournament teams. Expected growing pains aside, that could be a crucial stretch to determine where DU might fit in the NCAA Tournament puzzle.

The second half starts off road heavy, with trips to Massachusetts to play UMass-Lowell and Merrimack, neither of which was above .500 in 2017-18 before a visit to Wisconsin, which was 14-19-4 last season and like the Pioneers lost a handful of players early to pro hockey.

I think this will be a key juncture for the Pioneers. For one, school won’t have started yet, and consecutive weeks on the road offers players (or forces them) to bond further. If they can come out of the break with some momentum, things set up well in the second half for one of DU’s patented new year’s runs.

NCHC play resumes with a visit from Omaha, which DU has a 12-game win streak against, and the first half of the Gold Pan rivalry against what appears to be a further improved Colorado College team. Then it’s a trip to Western, which was a house of horrors in November 2017, and a visit from North Dakota as the calendar flips to February.

A week off precedes a trip to Duluth, where Denver has fared well in recent years (we think equipment guru Nick Meldrum’s dive into Lake Superior is one main reason for that) and caps another run of six games against ranked teams. The finish is a visit from Miami, a trip to Omaha and the second CC series.

The final analysis: This season might boil down to two rough stretches – the five-series gauntlet from the beginning of November into mid-December, and a three-week blitz from late January to mid-February. If the Pioneers can go .500 or better in those stretches, they should have a say about a return to the NCAA Tournament. Both halves of the season offer opportunities to build some momentum, and the finish offers opportunities as well.

NEXT: Breaking down DU’s roster

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