BOSTON — Ryan Barrow arrived at the University of Denver in the fall of 2017 from Banff, Alberta, months after its ice hockey team had won the N.C.A.A. Division I men’s championship.

From upperclassmen and alumni, he had heard the great stories about how the 2017 team had won the university’s eighth title, and he watched the highlight video so many times he had it practically memorized.

Barrow strove to replicate that achievement and help Denver draw into a tie for the most such championships, only to see the Pioneers disappointed over and over. But on Saturday night, in his 168th college game, at the end of his fifth college season, Barrow finally made it happen.

His team had been sluggish, seemingly unable to beat Minnesota State goalie Dryden McKay, the recent winner of the Hobey Baker Award as the top player in Division I men’s hockey. But a little more than five minutes into the third period of the championship game, Barrow scored to make the score, 1-1, turning the game on its head.

Denver added four more goals, including Mike Benning’s tiebreaker less than three minutes later, and ultimately two into an empty net, as Denver defeated Minnesota State, 5-1, in Boston to capture its ninth title.

Barrow, 25, will now have his own stories to tell, and a new video to memorize.

“I can’t even remember how many times I watched the 2017 pump-up video of them winning the national championship,” Barrow said. “It will be pretty sweet to watch my own now.”

Denver’s victory came in the same arena as its 2004 championship over Maine (Denver also won in Boston in 1960), and the Pioneers stayed in the same Sheraton hotel the 2004 team used.

“We’ll be staying there every time we play here now,” Coach David Carle said.

By beating Michigan in overtime in their semifinal on Thursday, Denver checked off its first goal of this Frozen Four: to ensure the Wolverines would not become the first team to win 10 titles.

The Wolverines were a formidable opponent, featuring 13 N.H.L. draft picks, including seven first-rounders and four of the top five picks from last July’s draft. The Pioneers trailed by 1-0 in that game, too, but fought back to win on Carter Savoie’s overtime goal. Carle’s quest to get Denver that ninth title remained alive.

“Winning Thursday against Michigan, the team at nine, was a huge step in that direction,” Carle said.

Carle, 32, is only seven years older than Barrow. A former Denver recruit, Carle never hid from his players the significance of winning a ninth championship.

In 2008, after playing at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minn., Carle was set to follow his older brother — the N.H.L. player Matt Carle — and be a star player at Denver. It never worked out. At an N.H.L. scouting combine before David Carle’s freshman year of college, doctors discovered he had an enlarged heart muscle. He was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and he retired from playing.

But the university honored his scholarship, and George Gwozdecky, the coach at the time, made him an assistant coach while a student. After graduating in 2012, David Carle went to Green Bay to be an assistant coach in the United States Hockey League, a top junior ice hockey league, then returned to Denver two years later as an assistant to the new Pioneers coach Jim Montgomery. When Montgomery departed to coach the Dallas Stars in the N.H.L. in 2018, Denver took a chance on a confident and unusually experienced 28-year-old.

“That responsibility does not fall on me lightly,” David Carle said to explain why it meant so much to tie for most championships. “I owe a lot of what I have in my life to the university.”

For much of Saturday’s game, it did not appear that Carle or the Pioneers (31-9-1) would do it. Minnesota State (38-5-0) carried the balance of play, but could not cash in on numerous opportunities to add to its lead. Much of that was because of the work of Magnus Chrona, the team’s Swedish goaltender.

For two periods, it looked as if McKay, Minnesota State’s goalie, might add to his N.C.A.A. record of 34 career shutouts. But it was Chrona who stopped all but one of the 28 shots he faced, drawing the admiration of his teammates, whose languid start almost doomed them.

“For the first 40 minutes, I don’t think our team realized we were in the national championship game,” Barrow, who set Denver’s career games played record, said. “But he stood on his head.”

Once Barrow evened the score, Minnesota State all but collapsed — or, as Minnesota State Coach Mike Hastings described it, “started leaking oil.”

Massimo Rizzo’s goal extended Denver’s lead to 3-1 with under seven minutes to play. That was followed by the two empty-net goals.

At the final horn, the Denver players charged over the boards and onto the ice, tossing their gloves and sticks in the air and mobbing Chrona. Their goal had been achieved. Well, one of them, anyway.

“The ultimate goal,” Carle announced, “is to be the first one to 10.”