ST. PAUL, Minn. – The University of Denver hockey team goes for its NCAA-record 10th national championship on Saturday as the Pioneers face the Boston College Eagles at 4 p.m. MT at Xcel Energy Center.
 
The game will be nationally televised on ESPN2 and will be available on the radio with Westwood One and Sirius XM (Ch. 84) having the national broadcast and Jay Stickney have the call locally in Colorado on Denver Sports 104.3 The Fan.
 
No. 3 overall seed DU will play the top-seed BC in a rematch from a game on Oct. 21 in Chestnut Hill when the Pioneers rallied for a 4-3 win. That game featured Denver as the No. 2 team in the country and Boston College at No. 3 and marked the Pioneers' first top-three win on the road since winning 4-2 at BC Oct. 14, 2011.
 
Denver is now 3-1 in games that feature the top-three teams in the land this season, as the squad beat No. 2 Boston University 2-1 in overtime in the Frozen Four Semifinals on Thursday. Goaltender Matt Davis made 33 saves, Tristan Lemyre scored his second goal of the season to tie the game and Tristan Broz registered his second career OT-winner, and second of the tournament, to send the Pioneers to their 13th NCAA Championship Game.
 
Boston College took down Michigan by a 4-0 score in its semifinal matchup on Thursday. Will Smith scored twice while Gabe Perreault had a goal and two assists. Jacob Fowler stopped all 32 shots in the shutout.
 
The Eagles have the longest winning streak in the country as they have won 15 games in a row since losing to rival BU in the Beanpot Tournament on Feb. 5. The Pioneers are on a season-best eight-game winning streak and have just two losses since the start of February, going 14-2-1 in the past 17 games.
 
Denver is in the Frozen Four Championship Game for the second time in three seasons after winning its ninth time in 2022 over Minnesota State in Boston. DU is 9-3 all-time in title contests and have won each of the past four championship games it has played in.
 
DENVER VS. BC IN THE NATIONAL TOURNAMENT: The Pioneers are 3-1 all-time against the BC Eagles in the NCAA Tournament, including winning 5-2 the team's previous matchup in in the 2015 East Regional Semifinals in Providence, R.I. The teams had met the previous year in Worcester, Mass, with the Eagles winning that contest 6-2. This will be the third tie that DU and BC will face off in the Frozen Four, as the Pioneers won 4-1 in the semifinals in 1968 en route to a championship in Duluth and 10-4 in the 1973 semifinals in Boston. This is the first meeting in a national championship game.
 
SCOUTING THE EAGLES: The Eagles began the season by spoiling Quinnipiac's 2023 national championship banner-raising ceremony, winning 2-1 in overtime.  The two teams met again in the NCAA Providence Regionals two weeks ago, with BC defeating the defending champs 5-4 in overtime to advance to the Frozen Four.  BC has a 34-5-1 record on the season with 20-3-1 record within the Hockey East conference.  They are 6-1 in games played at neutral arenas and are currently on a 15-game win streak. The Eagles were handed their last loss at home on Feb. 5, 2023 against Boston University in the Beanpot Semifinals.  They've since gone on to outscore opponents 79-24 on their winning streak.  BC has had 25 Frozen Four appearance and five NCAA Championships, with its the most recent win in 2012. Will Smith leads the squad with 71 points (25g/46a) and became the highest draft pick in program history after going fourth overall in the 2023 NHL Draft to the San Jose Sharks.  Boston College is stacked with 14 drafted players, four of which came within the first round.  Goalie Jacob Fowler has played in 38 contests for the Eagles, owning a record of 32-5-1 with a .926 save percentage, 2.14 goals against average and three shutouts.
 
HISTORY VS. BC: Denver and Boston College are set to meet for the second time this season after the Pioneers handed BC its first loss of the season by a 4-3 score on Oct. 21, 2023 in Chestnut Hill.  Denver is 4-1 in the last five meetings against Boston College and owns an all-time record of 20-16-0 against the Beantown program in a series that dates back to 1968.  Denver is 6-5 all time on the road against BC and 11-10 as the home team.  The schools have met four times at neutral sites, with DU owning a 3-1 mark and is 3-1 in matchups in the national tournament.
 
CONNECTIONS: Lucas Olvestad and Boston College's Jacob Bengtsson are both from Stockholm, while BC's Oskar Jellvik (Taby) is also from Sweden … Alex Weiermair (Los Angeles) and the Eagles' Andre Gasseau (Garden Grove) and Adam Hreschuk (Long Beach) are all from the L.A. area … DU's Sean Behrens (Barrington) and Jack Devine (Glencoe) and BC's Gabe Perreault (Hinsdale) are all from the Chicago area … Boston College has 11 players from the U.S. National Team Development Program on its team, with Denver's Sean Behrens and Jack Devine playing two years at the NTDP with BC's Aidan Hreschuk and Andre Gasseau, while Zeev Buium and Alex Weiermair were teammates with Drew Fortescue, Will Smith, Ryan Leonard, Aram Minnetian and Will Vote at the Program last season … Zeev Buium was also a teammate of BC's Fortescue, Smith, Leonard, Minnetian, Cutter Gauthier, Jacob Fowler and Gabe Perreault on the 2024 U.S. World Junior Team that won gold in January in Sweden and was coached by Pioneers head coach David Carle.
 
ANDESON WINS ELITE 90: Defenseman Kent Anderson became the seventh overall Denver student-athlete to earn the NCAA Elite 90 award and the third member of the hockey program, joining Gabe Levin in 2016 and Erich Fear in 2019.  The finance major earned the honor by having the highest grade-point average (3.975) at the Frozen Four.
 
ALL-AMERICAN MEN: Denver had three players named All-Americans for the second straight season as Zeev Buium and Jack Devine were selected to the West First Team while Massimo Rizzo was chosen as a Second-Team member. This is Buium and Devine's first career honor, with Zeev being the first freshman since Henrik Borgstrom (first team) in 2017 to be recognized as an All-American.  Rizzo was one of three players of the overall 25 All-Americans to repeat with the honor, and he is the first Pioneer since Borgstrom in 2016-17 and 2017-18 and 12th overall to earn multiple All-American titles.
 
BROZ ENDS IT IN OT AGAIN: Junior forward Tristan Broz of Bloomington, Minn., recorded his second career overtime goal and the second of this year's national tournament after tallying 11:09 into OT in the Frozen Four vs. Boston University.  It was Broz' fourth game-winning goal of the season and seventh of his career after he also scored the winner in double-OT vs. UMass in the Northeast Regional Semifinals on March 28 in Springfield, Mass.
 
This is the first time in Denver's NCAA Tournament history where it has won multiple games in OT, with the team improving to 5-2 all-time in the extra session in the Big Dance.
 
The Pioneers are 6-1-3 overall this season in overtime, which also includes a win against St. Cloud State in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff Semifinals at Xcel Energy Center on March 22. 
 
A 2-1 WIN X3: The Pioneers won their third consecutive game by a 2-1 score with its overtime victory against Boston University, marking the first time ever in the program's 75-season history it has won three straight games by that score.
 
Denver is 10-4 in one-goal games this season and has won each of its last four such contests
 
The last time that DU won three-straight contests in the NCAA Tournament by a single score was during its 2022 title run when it beat UMass Lowell 3-2 and Minnesota Duluth 2-1 in Regionals before winning 3-2 in overtime against Michigan in the Frozen Four.
 
NOTABLES:

• Denver improved to 18-15-2 in 35 all-time meetings and 4-2 in the NCAA Tournament with the Boston University Terriers.
• Thursday marked the second meeting in St. Paul between DU and BU in the national tournament, with the Pioneers winning 7-2 in the West Regional Semifinals in 2016.
• DU took a single penalty for the second straight game, matching a season low.
• Thursday continued Denver's 33rd appearance in the NCAA Tournament in program history. DU owns a 43-25 all-time record in the national tournament.
• Denver improved to 19-9-2 in its last 30 top-three matchups, including 8-2-1 in the last 11 such meetings.
• The Pioneers improved to 8-2 in its 10 national tournament games in Minnesota, including 6-2 in the Twin Cities.
• Denver is now 18-9 at the Xcel Energy Center since the building opened in 2000 and is 3-0 in the national tournament games at the arena.
• Thursday's start time was 4 p.m. local and DU improved to 4-0 in day games this year. The Pioneers are 5-0 in neutral-site contests.
• Matt Davis made his 25th-straight start in net on Thursday, the longest consecutive games started stretch by a DU netminder since Magnus Chrona had 25 outings in a row from Nov. 5, 2021-Feb. 25, 2022.
• Davis made 33-of-34 saves to push his career-long winning streak to eight games, matching a personal-long unbeaten stretch from earlier in the season. He owns a .972 save percentage through three games of the NCAA Tournament (103-for-106).
• Massimo Rizzo returned to the lineup for the first time since Feb. 3 after missing 14 games with a lower-body injury.
• Tristan Lemyre's goal in the second period was his second of the season (March 2 at St. Cloud State  and the sixth of his Pioneer career.
• Miko Matikka's assist was his 13th of his rookie season, and his 33rd point. The point was also Matikka's second of the NCAA Tournament.
• Sean Behrens game-winning assist was his 26th of the season and the 70th of his career.