MANCHESTER, N.H. — Fly east. Get off the plane. Beat a couple of East Coast teams. Repeat.
That’s been the winning formula for Denver the last two NCAA hockey tournament regionals, and now the program is heading to the Frozen Four for the 19th time after a 3-1 win over Boston College to win the Manchester Regional before a crowd of 6,802 on Sunday night at SNHU Arena.
“Our goalie found a way to make a lot of critical saves, and we found a way to make one more play than they did,” Denver coach David Carle said. “That’s a lot of times what these games are and we feel really fortunate to be on the right side of it.”
Defending national champion Denver (31-11-1) is in the Frozen Four for the fourth time in the last six tournaments. Denver won last year’s NCAA championship by sending three Hockey East tournament participants home.
Denver goalie Matt Davis had 35 saves, including a number of big ones in the final minutes of regulation as BC pulled goalie Jacob Fowler for an extra skater.
“I think we feed off that kind of energy,” Davis said. “It was definitely a great atmosphere to play in front of.”
Hockey East regular season champ BC, which lost to Denver in last year’s NCAA championship game, saw its season end at 27-8-2.
“It feels like déjà vu a little bit,” BC coach Greg Brown said. “They play a strong, strong game. They really do a nice job both defensively and offensively. (I) thought we started really well, on our toes. Generated a lot of pressure in their zone in the first period that they were able to withstand — make saves, get blocks, whatever it took.”
Denver has beaten a Hockey East opponent in five of its last six NCAA tournament games.
Denver broke a scoreless deadlock at 18:19 of the first period on Eric Pohlkamp’s 11th goal of the season (assisted by Jack Devine and Aidan Thompson). Skating hard into the slot, Pohlkamp slammed a backhand pass from Hobey Baker finalist Devine and into the net for the 1-0 lead, which the Pioneers took into the break.
“They were definitely trying to play physical in the first, definitely trying to get under our skin,” said Denver forward and captain Carter King. “We were able to regroup. We’ve played teams like that before. I think that’s what’s so great about playing in the NCHC — you play (teams) that test you during the regular season.”
It took a lot less time for Denver to get going in the second period, when James Reeder gave the Pioneers a 2-0 lead just under three minutes in. Reeder fired a hard wrister from the far point through a crowd and into the net. Hobey finalist Zeev Buium and Samu Salminen assisted.
Buium appeared to score at 8:14 of the middle frame to give Denver a commanding 3-0 lead, but BC challenged for offside and the call on the ice was reversed. It remained 2-0.
BC finally got some momentum in the final minute of the second period. Teddy Stiga, alone at mid-ice, scooped up a feed from Will Vote and beat Denver goalie Matt Davis one-on-one to cut the Pioneers’ lead in half, making it 2-1 with just 57 seconds remaining. That’s where it stood at the end of two.
“Any loss at this stage of the year is tough,” said BC defenseman and captain Ryan Leonard. “Obviously, both years (losing to Denver) is brutal.”
Fowler had 22 saves. Buium added an empty-net goal with 4.4 seconds left to account for the final score.
“We were just trying to stay connected (through) the final buzzer,” Buium said. “(Davis) bailed us out a couple of times and made some big-time saves. Everyone was connected and stayed connected.”
The Pioneers head to St. Louis in search of national title No. 11, their third in four years and sixth this century and will face NCHC rival Western Michigan on April 10. They join Penn State (Big Ten) and Boston University (Hockey East) in this year’s Frozen Four.
