Admit it. You weren’t sure how Denver’s hockey team would fare to begin the season. After all, the Pioneers featured a young lineup (20 underclassmen), a first-time head coach and a daunting conclusion to their first-half schedule.

Yet here they sit at No. 8 in Division I with an 8-4-2 record and a victory over then-No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth, a win and a tie against then-No. 9 Providence, a win at No. 14 North Dakota and a sweep of Western Michigan, which now is No. 17.

Denver finds itself in this position because of a combination of factors, including, but not limited to, a surprising goaltending situation, heavy contributions from a heralded freshman class and game-over-game improvements.

Here is a closer look at the first half and what to expect going forward.

Offense keeps humming

The Pioneers had to replace 70 of their 135 goals scored from a season ago, and a remarkable freshman class has stepped in to fill quite a bit of that void.

Cole Guttman (seven goals), Emilio Pettersen (five), Brett Stapley (three), Tyler Ward (two) and Slava Demin (one) already have combined for 18 goals. Senior Jarid Lukosevicius has nine among his 15 points (tied with Pettersen for the team lead) and junior Liam Finlay has seven. Both upperclassmen have hat tricks.

DU’s average of 3.36 goals per game is 12th in D-I, and it’s largely come on the strength of it’s top two lines and its defense. Six players have 11 points or more, and five of them are on the top two lines. Defenseman Ian Mitchell is the other.

Five players are at six points, including three more defenseman, the sixth top-six forward (Ward) and captain Colin Staub, who along with linemates Jaakko Heikkinen and Ryan Barrow, is beginning to add some offense.

If there is a concern, it’s that the Pioneers’ offense might be a bit top heavy, but the active and skilled defense helps mitigate some of those fears. And there are some sleeping giants playing down lineup right now who are imminently capable of contributing points.

Two thirds of its goals (31 of 47) come at even strength, which also is encouraging because it means the offense isn’t limited to the sometimes subjective nature of power-play opportunities.

Defensive revelations

The story, by far, of the first half has been the play of sophomore goaltender Devin Cooley. Cooley, who played all of 20 minutes last season as the third stringer, has been solid to terrific virtually every night. His 7-4-1 record with a 2.16 goals-against average and .928 save percentage (10th in D-I) reinforce that he’s giving the Pioneers a chance to win every night.

Of Denver’s four losses, three have been by one goal. The one blip was last weekend’s 4-1 loss at North Dakota, and that included the only empty-net goal against thus far this season.

The return of heralded freshman Filip Larsson against Providence three weeks ago also was an encouraging development, and he essentially won the game for DU at NoDak last Saturday. Larsson is 1-0-1 with 2.31 and .937 numbers, the latter of which would have him in D-I’s top five if he’d played enough games.

The top four of the defense would appear to be set, as junior Michael Davies and sophomore Griffin Mendel have emerged as the shutdown pair. Davies also has six points and has bounced back from an up-and-down 2017-18 campaign. Mitchell and Demin have teamed up on the second pair. As many as four others are rotating through the third pair.

The Pioneers are at their best when their forwards backcheck hard and help the D limit foes to one-and-dones in the defensive zone. Most games this has been solid, but there are stretches when foes (UMD and WMU third-period rallies come to mind) have created chaos in Denver’s zone and quickly gotten back into games.

Special teams and discipline

Denver has been above average on both special teams.

Its power play is 22nd at 19.4 percent, and it has 13 of its 47 goals with the man advantage. The top unit has nine of them – Pettersen with four, Lukosevicius and Mitchell with two each and Stapley with another.

It’s penalty kill is 20th with an 83.1 percent success rate, and it’s needed to be good because the typically disciplined Pioneers have spent more than 12 minutes per game in the box, 50 percent more than last season. They’ve also taken five majors, most of which were avoidable.

That falls under the needs improvement category.

DU also has been solid in the face-off circle, winning 52.1 percent of its draws. That helps feed the puck possession monster.

The schedule

The Pioneers will be busy after the break – they have 22 games remaining. They begin with two of their five road weekends (in Massachusetts and Wisconsin) before heading home for the first of their four home series (Omaha) and followed by the first of two home-and-home sets with Colorado College. Nice move by the NCHC and the schools to put both of those in the second half, by the way.

Aside from the fact they won’t have Mitchell, who made Canada’s World Junior team, they’re in a good position to add significantly to their win total right off the bat.

DU has been strong at home (6-1-2) and will want to make the most of its remaining 10 dates at Magness Arena. Trips to Duluth and Western Michigan in particular will be big challenges.

The forecast

Mostly sunny.

Can the Pioneers win at least 12 or more of the remaining 22 games to reach 20 wins and give themselves a solid shot at the NCAA Tournament? Yes. I actually think they’ll exceed that.

St. Cloud State and Duluth seem like the top two teams in the NCHC to this point,  and the Pioneers have played them close in four meetings, so that tells me DU isn’t as far from the top of the heap as many people anticipated.

They’ll be in a dogfight with North Dakota, Western Michigan, resurgent Miami and, yes, even CC for a top-four spot in the league and home ice for a conference quarterfinal series but they’re clearly capable of that.

The concerns at this point are:

• Will the goaltending hold up? I have seen nothing to indicate that it won’t.
• Can DU cut down its penalties? Possibly. That has improved some.
• Will more offensive balance emerge? I don’t see how it can’t. Players like Ryan Barrow, Tyson McLellan and Kohen Olischefski won’t go goal-less for an entire season.

None of those are insurmountable, and if the goaltending remains as solid as it has been and a typical second-half improvement occurs, the Pioneers will have good chance at a deep NCAA run.

©First Line Editorial 2017-18