DENVER — The defending champs look primed for another trip to the Frozen Four.
Denver made quick work of Miami (Ohio) in the best-of-three opening round of the NCHC playoffs, winning by a final of 6-2 on Friday and 7-2 on Saturday to complete the sweep.
The Pioneers, Penrose Cup winners after a first-place regular-season finish in the conference, are now 6-0 against the RedHawks this season, winning the season series by a combined score of 34-6.
The star of this opening weekend of the playoffs was undoubtedly Jack Devine.
The sophomore forward and Florida Panthers draft pick had a four-goal night on Friday and tallied another on Saturday to give him five for the weekend.
Devine has now scored nine of his 14 goals this season over the past month and has emerged as a key scoring weapon for DU.
While Devine's scoring barrage was the story on Friday, it was a much more balanced effort in the second game as seven different players found the back of the net.
The Pioneers scored three goals in the first 3 minutes, 24 seconds of the game, including senior Casey Dornbach's opening tally that came just 36 seconds after puck drop, making it the fastest goal scored by a DU player this season.
Senior defenseman Kyle Mayhew had four assists a night after he played in his 150th career game at DU.
With regular starter Magnus Chrona still banged up, sophomore Matt Davis got the start between the pipes and continued to look like a reliable option should Chrona miss more time.
Davis started the final two games of the season against Colorado College, earning NCHC goaltender of the week honors after picking up a pair of wins. Davis adds two more wins to his career tally this weekend and made 49 saves over the course of the two days against Miami.
DU now advances back to the NCHC Frozen Faceoff in St. Paul, Minn., and will face rival CC after the Tigers pulled off a surprising upset over 2-seed Western Michigan with a two-game sweep in Kalamazoo.
The Pioneers went 4-0 against the Tigers during the regular season, outscoring CC 12-4 over those four games.
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