The Denver men’s hockey team used a formula that it used throughout the postseason to wrap up its NCAA-record 10th championship.

The No. 3-ranked Pioneers scored two goals in the second period and Matt Davis stopped all 35 shots he faced to beat top-ranked Boston College 2-0 in the Frozen Four championship game Saturday at Xcel Energy Center. The title breaks a tie that Denver had shared with Michigan and is the Pioneers’ second title in three years.

“What an effort by our team,” Denver coach David Carle said. “I thought they executed unbelievably well. Everybody laid it all on the line and we’re national champions. I’m so proud of them. They’ll walk together forever.

“Big compliments to (coach) Greg Brown and his staff and the season that they had at Boston College,” Carle said of the Eagles, who finished 34-6-1. “(Brown) has returned them to being a perennial contender and I look forward to playing them again in these types of games again. We’re going to enjoy this one and so proud our team and our program.”

Denver, which outscored its opponents 80-39 in the season, took a 2-0 lead into the third period.

Left wing Rieger Lorenz made a pass from above the top of the faceoff circle to the right of goalie Jacob Fowler down to right wing Jared Wright at the faceoff dot. Wright, a sophomore from Burnsville and a Los Angeles Kings draft pick, took a few strides toward the net and his shot went off of Fowler’s shoulder and crept over the goal line at 9:42 of the second period.

“I just remember coming up the ice with the puck and I kicked it out to Rieger,” Wright said of his 15th goal of the season. “Rieger made an awesome play to get it back to me. I just kind of threw it blind to the net and was lucky enough that it rolled in. It was a big goal.”

Lorenz, a sophomore from Calgary and a Minnesota Wild draft pick, made it 2-0 with his 16th goal of the season at 15:16. The play was set up with a dynamic play by freshman defenseman Zeev Buium. Buium skated up the left wing boards, drew two BC players toward him, made a power turn toward the boards and then hit Lorenz with a no-look, behind-the-back pass. Lorenz got the puck between the faceoff dot and the hash mark to the right of Fowler and beat him with a shot over his right shoulder.

That was more than enough support for Davis, who was named the Frozen Four MVP after being named the regional MVP. In four NCAA tournament games, Davis, a junior from Calgary, stopped 138 of 141 shots in the national tournament.

“Super human,” Carle said of Davis. “This whole run ... he gave up three goals. It’s incredible what he did. A lot of big-time saves in those wins. It’s not like we weren’t giving up any chances.

“Did we get better defensively? Yes. Did we get more predictable? Yes. But there were many moments in these games where he could have cracked, but he didn’t. Without him, we’re not sitting here (champions). He earned this for us. I’m so proud of the work that (goalie coach) Ryan Massa has done with him the last few years and his perseverance and getting through a lot of his challenges and his adversity. I couldn’t be happier for Matt and his family and what he was able to do for this program.”

Denver senior captain McKade Webster did not mince words about Davis.

“Matthew Davis, what a job he did,” Webster said. “He’s the best goalie in the world.”

Davis has had an interesting career at Denver. His first two seasons, he was a backup to Magnus Chrona and went 11-2 with a 1.84 goals-against average and .924 save percentage.

This season, he started the first five games and was 3-1-1, gave up 16 goals and had an .872 save percentage before suffering a lower body injury and did not play a game in November and December.

“I hadn’t played (a lot) in a while and I had to get back into certain details and habits,” said Davis, who started his 25th straight game Saturday. “Our goalie coach, Ryan Massa, has been absolutely incredible for me. I love that guy to death. He’s done so much for me and my family. We had a lot of valleys this year, but it feels good to be on the summit.”

Davis tied a championship game record with 23 saves in the third period. The other goalie to Denver’s Peter Mannino, who made 23 saves against North Dakota in a 4-1 in the 2005 championship game.

The other members of the All-Frozen Four team are Zeev Buium and Behrens on defense with Denver junior center Tristan Broz, Denver sophomore left wing Rieger Lorenz and Boston College freshman center Will Smith.

This may give Davis’ performance some more perspective. Boston College went into the game second in the nation in offense (4.6 goals-per-game), 16th in shots (31.8), second on the power play (29.3%) and second in shooting percentage (14.4).

Boston College was shut out for the first time since Merrimack beat the Eagles 1-0 in double overtime on March 11, 2023. The Eagles had 12 shots through two periods, so it was not just Davis that shut them down.

“Denver did a good job of getting above, especially in the neutral zone,” Brown said. “We’re usually pretty good at breaking pucks out and having speed through the neutral zone. And they had three and four guys a lot of times above our guys right away.

“I just didn’t think we generated as much speed, and that’s more a credit to them. I thought a few times, especially in the first, they were higher in the neutral zone than we thought, and we didn’t come back as usually a couple forwards will come deep and join our ‘D’ and come at them with a little more speed.”

Fowler, a Montreal Canadiens draft pick, made 24 saves, but took the loss.