Five takeaways from Denver's NCAA national championship run

Apr. 14—ST. PAUL, Minn. — The University of Denver won its 10th NCAA national title Saturday night, beating Boston College 2-0 in Xcel Energy Center.

As usual, it's time to dissect Denver's title and trends in recent title-winning teams.

Here are five takeaways:

Yeah, it seems obvious.

But nobody is winning NCAA titles right now with mediocre goaltending.

Denver, which had one of the worst team save percentages in the nation at Christmastime, found masterful goaltending at the right time.

Junior Matt Davis stopped 139 of 142 shots in the NCAA tournament, a .979 save percentage. He was particularly brilliant in the title game, posting a 35-save shutout against a Boston College team that hadn't been blanked all year.

Boston College goalie Jacob Fowler also was excellent.

Go down the list of recent champions, and all of them have received clutch goaltending — Yaniv Perets at Quinnipiac, Magnus Chrona at Denver, Filip Lindberg at UMass and Hunter Shepard at Minnesota Duluth.

Perets, Chrona, Lindberg and Shepard all landed NHL contracts, too.

In fact, since college hockey's realignment in 2013-14, only one title-winning goalie never landed an NHL contract — Denver's Tanner Jaillet, who won the Mike Richter Award as college hockey's top goalie in 2017.

The Big Ten has loaded up on first-round NHL picks, who don't often stay past two years.

Boston University and Boston College of Hockey East have taken turns doing so as well.

They've received a lot of publicity for it — but none of them have won the big prize yet.

So far, the NCHC has owned the NCAA tournament, generally using a recruiting model of getting mid-round picks who stay until they're upperclassmen.

Since realignment, the NCHC has won six national titles. The ECAC and Hockey East have won two each. The Big Ten hasn't won a title yet.

While nobody is going to turn away an NHL first-round draft pick, it also shows you don't need that makeup to win big.

Only one of the last 11 NCAA national champions has had multiple first-round NHL picks on the roster. That was 2015-16 UND, which had Nick Schmaltz (No. 20 overall) and Brock Boeser (No. 23).

When Denver defenseman Zeev Buium is picked in the first round in June, he will be just the second first-round pick to win a national title in the last seven years. The other is Minnesota Duluth's Riley Tufte.

If Buium goes in the top 15, he'll be the first top-15 pick to win a national title since Boston University's Colin Wilson in 2009.

There have been 14 teams in college hockey history with four-plus first-round picks. None of them have won the NCAA title. This year's Boston College team was the first to even make the final.

The Eagles, with three players drafted in the top eight, fell one game short.

Yes, you need to be careful with making too many grand assumptions based on the NCAA tournament.

The difference between losing first round and winning it all can be paper thin.

Denver went to double overtime with UMass in the first round this year. The Minutemen had some great looks in overtime to win it. Denver got through on a goal by Minnesota transfer Tristan Broz.

Denver also got through a second overtime game Thursday night against Boston University in the NCAA Frozen Four semifinals.

Six-straight title winners have needed to win an overtime game en route to the championship. Three of them had to win an overtime game in the first round.

The last team to get to the trophy without an overtime game was 2017 Denver.

The most common seed to win the national tournament: No. 1.

Denver became the third-straight No. 1 seed and the 10th in 15 years to win it all. The Pioneers were the No. 1 seed in the Springfield Regional and the No. 3 overall.

However, the No. 1 overall seed hasn't had as much luck.

In the last 11 tournaments, only one No. 1 overall seed has won it. That was Denver in 2017.

The final at-large team to reach the tournament has won more titles (three) than the No. 1 overall seed (one) in that span.

Boston College was the No. 1 overall this year.

This tournament shows UND again wasn't far off.

The Fighting Hawks played Denver four times this season and took 10 of 12 points. They won three times in regulation and lost once in overtime.

UND won the Penrose Cup as NCHC regular-season champions, finishing four points ahead of the Pioneers.

But Denver caught fire at the right time, going 15-2-1 after getting swept by UND in late January.

UND went 8-6 after that series and lost 4-3 to Michigan in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Speaking of overtimes, that was UND's first NCAA tournament loss that didn't come in overtime since the 2015 Frozen Four in Boston.