The University of Denver is at the top of the college hockey mountain, winning its ninth NCAA championship with an epic 5-1 victory over a veteran-laden Minnesota State team on Saturday night in Boston. This win was the culmination of a long and arduous season. It was a surreal feeling for the players, with sophomore defenseman Mike Benning (St. Albert, Alberta) saying, “it felt pretty blank” when he held up the trophy for the first time. “It’s what you dream of as a little guy, you know, winning a national championship. You just look at the guys you went to battle with and all of them raising the trophy too, you know, it is pleasant,” Benning added.
DU Hockey got here after starting the season ranked outside of the top 10 following a miserable, pandemic-shortened season where they fell far below expectations. There were times early in the season, particularly during the team’s four-game losing streak, where it looked like it wasn’t their year, but they overcame and became battle-tested. Coach David Carle said that “[the players] committed to each other every day to get better. It was not easy, but they continued to stick with it.”
For the first two periods, things were not going DU’s way; they were lucky to only be down one goal after the second intermission. A big part of the defensive hold was the impressive work by junior goaltender Magnus Chrona (Stockholm, Sweden), who made multiple big time saves to keep the game within reach. Coach Carle said that after a tough season for Chrona the year prior, “he came back with a very refreshed and growth-oriented mindset, and he improved from day one to now in exceptional ways.”
The one shot he could not save came in the first period on a Minnesota State power play as forward Sam Morton collected a rebound and scored following a clean faceoff win from the Mavericks that set up the play. The pressure from the Mavericks did not stop after that goal, as DU was chasing the game for most of the first period. Senior forward Ryan Barrow (Banff, Alberta) joked that “for the first 40 minutes, I don’t think our team realized we were in the national championship game there.” Given DU only had eight shots on goal through two periods, the only positive coming into the third period was that they were only down one and not more.
In the third period, everything changed. Like they have done so many times this season, the Denver offense went into a feeding frenzy and scored goals in bunches. The first one came from Barrow, who came into the program a year after DU’s last national championship. Minnesota State goaltender and Hobey Baker recipient Dryden McKay could not control the rebound off a bad, angle shot from defenseman Mike Benning, and Barrow capitalized by putting the puck in the back of the net to tie the game.
The second goal came less than three minutes after the first. With a Minnesota State player racing out of the penalty box, freshman defenseman Shai Buium (San Diego, Calif.) made a nice pass to Mike Benning who smashed a one-timer into the back of the net. After this goal, Minnesota State began to press, and their defensive shell, which had been so daunting for DU the first two periods, began to crack.
There is no better example of this than the third goal, where freshman forwards Carter Mazur (Jackson, Mich.) and Massimo Rizzo (Burnaby, B.C.) had a 2-on-1 all the way from the red line, which is unusual, especially against a team with as good a defense as Minnesota State. Mazur feathered a great pass to Rizzo, who found the back of the net with his shot.
The rest of the game was academic, with DU in charge the entire way. Senior forwards Brett Stapley (Campbell River, B.C.) and Cameron Wright (Newmarket, Ontario) each potted empty-net goals to make the final score 5-1 Denver, with DU scoring all five goals in the last 20 minutes.
The University of Denver hockey team is your 2021-22 NCAA Men’s Hockey Champions.
