Top-ranked Pioneers go light on draft picks

Chicago Blackhawks draftees Blake Hillman and Ian Mitchell were paired University of Denver defensemen Sunday as the defending NCAA champions hosted the University of Lethbridge in an exhibition game at Magness Arena.

Hillman, a junior, and the freshman Mitchell are among the Pioneers’ five NHL draft picks.

That’s not a typo. Preseason top-ranked DU — the unanimous choice to repeat as National Collegiate Hockey Conference champions — has only five active players selected in the recent NHL drafts.

That stacked program that received all 34 first-place votes in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine preseason poll has half as many NHL draft picks as Michigan (10) and far fewer than Minnesota (13) and Boston University (12).

In 2009-10, the last time DU began the season No. 1, it had 13 NHL draft picks. That team saw its season end against Rochester Institute of Technology in one of the biggest first-round upsets in NCAA Tournament history.

This season’s Pioneers, minus the allure of having half of their players attached to an NHL team, are still loaded on paper. They return 16 letterwinners and have standouts in all three positions, including forwards Henrik Borgstrom (drafted by the Florida Panthers), Troy Terry (Anaheim Ducks) and Dylan Gambrell (San Jose Sharks), defensemen Hillman, Adam Plant and Michael Davies and goalie Tanner Jaillet — the 2017 Mike Richter Award winner as the country’s best player in front of the net.

The Pioneers had little problem with Lethbridge, jumping to a 3-0 lead and winning 3-1. Footnotes. DU played 14 forwards, seven defensemen and three goalies. Jaillet stopped all eight shots he faced in the first period before giving way to freshman Dayton Rasmussen, who played the entire second and half of the third. Freshman walk-on Devin Cooley played the last 10 minutes. … Sophomore forwards Tyson McLellan and Liam Finlay scored in the first period, and Terry made it 3-0 early in the second. The top lines of Gambrell centering Terry and Jarid Lukosevicius and Borgstrom between Finlay and Jaako Heikkinen didn’t play in the second half of the game. … Captain Tariq Hammond, a senior defenseman, remains unavailable while recovering from ankle surgery.