No. 3 Denver moved closer to clinching the NCHC’s regular-season championship with a convincing 5-2 victory against No. 5 Western Michigan at Kalamazoo, Mich., on Friday night.

Defenseman Mike Benning had a career-high four points, Massimo Rizzo had three, and Jack Devine and Carter Mazur each added a pair. Benning scored twice, Rizzo, Mazur, and captain Justin Lee once each.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Taking down another top-5 team

The Pioneers (25-8, 16-5 NCHC) not only enhanced their league outlook, but they helped themselves in the bigger picture as well as a victory over a fellow top-5 team will only help their NCAA Tournament seeding.

And that was important given DU’s uneven performance against the NCHC’s other top teams. The Pioneers went 1-3 vs. St. Cloud State and 1-1 vs Omaha this season. This series was their only one of the season against what had been the nation’s hottest team.

The Broncos (21-11-1, 13-7-1 NCHC) had won 11 of 12 coming into Friday’s game.

February has been downright offensive

The Pioneers have not scored less than four goals in any of their first six games of the month and hit their average of an even five. Scoring is coming from everywhere in the lineup, but it is particularly encouraging to see the defense contributing so much offense.

Benning had two more goals, giving him 12 – second-most by a Division I blue liner – and has 32 points, second on the team to Rizzo’s 43. The latter, who has 11 multi-point games this season, could hit the 50-point threshold.

Devine, who had two assists on the heels of a seven-point, NCHC Forward of the Week Award-winning performance last weekend, has extended his career high for points to 25.

Mazur notched his 21st goal, second only to WMU’s Jason Polin, who struck in the first period Friday for his 27th. Dylan Wendt also scored for the Broncos in the first.

Magnus Chrona made 17 saves for DU, while Cameron Rowe had 29 for Western Michigan.

Pioneers one point away from a Penrose Cup

All Denver needs to do is take one point on Saturday or one during next weekend’s home-and-home series against Colorado College to clinch NCHC’s regular-season title and top seed in the league’s playoffs.

It’s pretty safe to book that, and a quarterfinal series against Miami of Ohio, which DU has outscored a cumulative 22-2 in four games this season, on the weekend of March 10-12.

©First Line Editorial 2023