Dartmouth College (2-7-1, 2-4-1 ECAC) at No. 2 Denver (9-3-4, 5-3-2-1 NCHC)

Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m. at Magness Arena

TV / Radio: Altitude2 / 104.3 FM

Series: Denver leads 2-0-1. The most recent result was a 1-1 tie on Jan. 2, 2015, when this season’s seniors were freshmen. Danton Heinen scored DU’s only goal and Evan Cowley made 43 saves.

Overview

Denver enters a stretch of four non-conference games over the next three weekends before returning to NCHC play in January. The Pioneers tied Colorado College twice last weekend, but dominated Saturday’s game after a so-so performance in Friday’s draw. … The Big Green has won just two of its first 10 games and is on a six-game winless slide (0-5-1). Its only two games against ranked teams (Harvard and Cornell) resulted in Dartmouth being shut out.

Denver update

Which Pioneers team will show up? For as well as DU has played at times (at Notre Dame, at Boston, vs. St. Cloud State), it also has had its share of hiccups (see Friday games vs. Lake Superior State, Colorado College and North Dakota). … With Henrik Borgstrom (13 goals, 23 points) and Troy Terry (23 points) having cooled off from their torrid starts, Dylan Gambrell (21 points), Logan O’Connor and Colin Staub (12 points) have emerged as the go-to line of late. O’Connor has points in three of his past four games and goals in two of those. Gambrell has points in three of five, and he and freshman Jaakko Heikkinen have taken over primary face-off duties while Tyson McLellan recovers from injury. … While the statuses of defensemen Adam Plant (head, neck) and Michael Davies (undisclosed) bear watching, the duo of junior Blake Hillman and freshman Ian Mitchell (12) has carried the mail on the blue line. Captain Tariq Hammond continues to improve game to game in his recovery from injury. … Tanner Jaillet continues to play well in net (8-2-4, 2.25 goals against, .919 save percentage). The guess here is freshman Dayton Rasmussen gets one of the starts this weekend. … The power play has gone MIA the past four games (0 for 12) but the penalty kill is on a heater, allowing just one goal in its past 22 opportunities.

Dartmouth update

Offense is the issue for the Big Green. It has seven goals in its two wins and just nine total in the other eight games. … Senior forward Corey Kalk has a team-high seven points (five assists), while junior forward Kevan Killstoff (six points) and sophomore forward Daniel Warpecha (five) lead the team with three goals apiece. Add in Kalk’s two goals and that is half of the team’s offense. … Senior Devin Buffalo (2-3) and sophomore Adrian Clark (0-4-1) have gotten most of the action in net. Clark has a .911 save percentage and 3.24 goals-against average, while Buffalo’s numbers are .875 and 3.56. Former Colorado youth hockey player Dean Shatzer also is available. … The Big Green’s offense (1.6 goals per game) is last among the 60 Division I teams, its defense (3.60 goals allowed per game) is 56th and it’s 10.3 percent power-play rate is 58th. In the midst of that, however, it kills off 81 percent of its penalties, which is close to DU’s 82.7 percent rate.

Did you know?

Hillman could join the 100-game club at DU one weekend after Hammond did it. The junior is at 98 games entering the weekend. … Terry is nine points away from 100 at DU, and when he hits that milestone he’ll be the second current player to do it (Gambrell was the first). … Freshman forward Jake Durflinger is clutch, but don’t just take my word for it. All four of his have come in “close” situations (at even strength, when DU is up or down by a goal in the first two periods or tied in the third period). Borgstrom and Terry also have four “close” goals, but they taken 2.5 and 2 times, respectively, as many shots.

How it could go down

Lake Superior State tied Denver at Magness Arena, which should serve as a reminder that anything can happen on any given night. Still, it would be a major surprise if the Pioneers don’t sweep and do so fairly convincingly.

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Copyright First Line Editorial 2017