Defending national champion Denver will play Cornell in a first-round 2023 NCAA Tournament game on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. MDT on ESPNews.
The Pioneers (30-9) received one of the NCAA Tournament’s four top seeds and will head to the Manchester, N.H. regional. DU won the NCHC regular-season title but lost in the conference’s semifinals on Friday to Colorado College, 1-0.
C0rnell (20-10-2) reached the ECAC semifinals before falling to Harvard. It has the second-stingiest defense in Division I, something that helped it finish third in the ECAC regular season behind Quinnipiac and Harvard.
Here is a statistical comparison of the teams:
Team | Denver | Cornell |
Record | 30-9 | 20-10-2 |
Goals per game | 3.8 | 3.4 |
Goals against per game | 2.2 | 2.0 |
Power play | 26.6% | 25.9% |
Penalty kill | 78% | 81.9% |
Face-offs | 50.3% | 54.5% |
Shots per game | 32 | 29 |
The other game in the regional features a team DU knows well – fellow NCHC member No. 9 Western Michigan – facing off against No. 5 Boston University.
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