Opportunity knocks, and Denver won’t have to leave the state to answer the door.

Installments three and four of the the six-game 2021 Gold Pan begin Thursday (at World Arena) and Saturday (at Magness Arena), and the Pioneers have a chance to retain the rivalry trophy with two victories. Should they do that, they will have gained the upper hand on the Tigers for the sixth time in seven seasons and the 15th time in 28 campaigns.

Closing the regular season with four games against CC provides DU a chance to write a few more positive chapters in a 2020-21 story that hasn’t always been a page-turner.

“Our mindset is these are playoff games,” said assistant captain Ryan Barrow. “Obviously we don’t like CC, and obviously they don’t like us.”

And neither program is in love with how its respective seasons have shaped up.

Colorado College picked up points in half of its eight pod games (it rescheduled two because of the first of two Covid-related pauses) then beat DU to start 2021. Promising enough. Since then it’s gone just 1-10, although that win came at Minnesota Duluth.

The biggest problems for the Tigers have been their special teams. The power play (7 percent – 50th out of 51 teams) and penalty kill (70 percent – 49th) are among the worst in Division I hockey. Runner-up is a struggling offense. Their 1.7 goals per game also ranks near the bottom of the heap.

CC is a young team, often playing eight or nine freshmen, including goaltender Dominic Basse, a Chicago Blackhawks draft pick who has taken over in net and has a sub-3.00 goals-against average.

Denver began the truncated season ranked in the top five. A 3-6-1 run at the NCHC’s pod in December, which included a starting gauntlet of games vs. North Dakota (twice), Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State, saw them drop in the rankings and eventually fall out of them.

The Pioneers (7-12-1) enter Thursday’s game on a three-game slide. After dropping their first meeting against CC this season (4-3 on New Year’s night), they won four of six (including a 6-1 blowout vs. CC) and nearly added a fifth in the seventh game before Omaha rallied in the third period and won in overtime on Feb. 6.

If there has been one hallmark of DU’s season to this point it’s inconsistency. Consider that during the first 10 games in the pod the Pioneers’ special teams were completely at odds. The power play connected at 24 percent, but the penalty kill was effective just 74 percent of the time. In the past 10 games, that script has flipped. The power play has had a power outage (just a 10 percent success rate) but the PK has been effective 85 percent of the time.

“Our PK struggled halfway through,” Barrow said. “But it’s taken huge strides since because we have had good sticks and are being aggressive.

“The power play has been good at times, but we’re just missing the finishing play.”

To that end, the Pioneers have dedicated additional time to working on shooting in practice.

“The focus has been on bearing down on our chances,” Barrow added. “We need to get bodies to the net, and we’ve been working on hitting the net.”

One group that has done a tangibly better job at that since the calendar flipped is Barrow’s senior class. After generating just 13 points in the pod’s 10 games, the group has more than doubled that in the past 10 games. The Pioneers will need more of the same going forward.

It’s been two weeks since DU has played  a game, while CC is coming off a 10-day bus trip that included four games in Nebraska and Minnesota.

In a season that’s been about about adapting, Barrow said the Pioneers are making the most of the stops and starts.

“There are some benefits,” he said. “The extra rest helps, and it gives guys a chance to heal if they have nagging injuries.

“There are a lot of programs that aren’t playing this season, so we are looking at the positives and are very grateful we get to play hockey.”

The opportunity to keep some hardware in the trophy case at Magness Arena is a nice side  benefit.

©First Line Editorial 2021