ST. PAUL, Minn. — When Boston College and Denver square off on Saturday with an NCAA championship on the line, it will be a matchup of the top two offenses in the nation.
But don’t read too much into that.
This game could be as much a tight checking, difficult-to-score barn burner as opposed to a track meet, shootout type of game, particularly if the game’s underdog, Denver, has its way.
The Pioneers have averaged 4.65 goals per game this season, tops in the nation. And their defense has been middle of the road for most of the year, allowing 2.79 goals per game, ranked 25th in the nation.
But the formula for Denver to reach the national title game has run completely counter to those statistics.
On Thursday, Denver won its third straight 2-1 game, this one coming in overtime over Boston University. The Pioneers defense has been stifling and is best of any team in the tournament.
That’s hardly a fact lost on Boston College coach Greg Brown.
“They’re hard to open up. They really play well as a team defensively,” said Brown, who seeks to lead the Eagles to their sixth national title and first since 2012. “They seem like, watching last night, they’re moving as a group of five all over the ice. There’s not a lot of free space, they’re not spread out. They do a great job of getting numbers around the puck.”
Denver coach David Carle acknowledged that his team’s commitment to defense wasn’t where it needed to be for much of the season. He said around the halfway point, he and his staff decided to address it head on with the players.
“We kind of gave the first half of the season a snapshot to the guys, where we were at. I think at that time we were, like, 40th in goals-against per game,” Carle said. “We just showed them data. I think the lowest goals-against per game [of a national champion] was 10 or 11. I believe that was us in ’22.
“It’s certainly been excellent once we’ve hit the national tournament here and our level of desperation and urgency to defend and defend properly has been there. There’s no doubt that’s been a huge part of our success.”
The Pioneers understand that they will once again need their shutdown defense to play its best on Saturday, but this time the challenge may feel a little different.
Plenty has been written on the Boston College offense, particularly the freshman line of Will Smith, Gabe Perreault and Ryan Leonard, as well as Hobey Hat Trick member Cutter Gauthier. Most teams, particularly since early February, haven’t found a way to stop them.
When the Pioneers and Eagles faced off in mid October, Denver did a decent job containing those four players in a 4-3 win (Smith did score twice and Gauthier, Perreault and Leonard each added assists). But Denver’s offense — as often happens in the postseason — hasn’t been as potent of late.
“I do think that the goal scoring is more of an anomaly the last three games,” said Carle. “Remembering who we’re playing, these are the best teams in the country.
“We obviously played [Boston College] earlier, we’ve seen what they done. They’ve really gone wire to wire as the No. 1 team in the country from December on. They haven’t really looked back or taken their foot off the gas.”
Is there correlation between how many total goals are scored Saturday and which team comes out on top? You might think so. High scoring should favor Boston College. Lower scoring should give Denver a chance at a 10th national title.
But this Boston College team, which rides a 15-game winning streak entering Saturday, seems comfortable with whatever style lies ahead.
“We said we can win any type of game,” said Will Smith, the nation’s leading scorer with 71 points. “We take pride in that. If we play a 1-0 game or high-scoring game, we’ll be there.”
