DU hock­ey coach David Car­le held vir­tu­al one-on-one meet­ings with each of his play­ers this week as the Pio­neers approach the start of a new season.

A glob­al pan­dem­ic hasn’t altered their cham­pi­onship expectations.

“We’re going to be a deep, four-line team that can roll teams over with their puck pres­sure and puck pos­ses­sion game,” Car­le said. “We’re real­ly excit­ed to get going — when­ev­er that exact date will be.”

What is known is that the the Pios’ start date won’t come until late Novem­ber at the earliest.

The Nation­al Col­le­giate Hock­ey Con­fer­ence announced Thurs­day that it has post­poned the start of its 2020–21 sea­son from Octo­ber until at least Nov. 20 to accom­mo­date for a bevy of coro­n­avirus-relat­ed issues. The NCHC has yet to deter­mine its sched­ul­ing mod­el, or where or when games will be played.

“There’s a lot that’s still on the table,” Car­le said. “We want to flush out every sched­ul­ing for­mat that’s avail­able. For our pro­gram and our play­ers, we just want to play at some point, what­ev­er that for­mat is exact­ly. If it involves get­ting on the ice and play­ing anoth­er team, we’re going to be excit­ed about it.”

DU play­ers began arriv­ing back on cam­pus start­ing in mid-August, Car­le said, and are required to pass “dif­fer­ent pro­to­cols to return to activ­i­ty.” The school has not released COVID-19 data for ath­let­ics, but a team spokesman told The Post it is fol­low­ing NCAA-approved test­ing poli­cies. The school is await­ing word from state health agen­cies on whether fans will be allowed for games at Mag­ness Arena.

DU hock­ey received the green light for orga­nized team activ­i­ties when class­es resume on Mon­day. Car­le said no play­ers have opt­ed out due to coro­n­avirus health concerns.

“Our hope is that we’ll be on the ice Mon­day,” Car­le said. “The offi­cial start date is Oct. 3 and you’re allowed four hours a week on the ice with each indi­vid­ual. We’re going to start in cohorts over three dif­fer­ent groups.”

The Pio­neers’ 2019–20 sea­son was cut short in mid-March with the can­cel­la­tion of NCAA win­ter cham­pi­onships. DU car­ried a No. 6 nation­al rank­ing and a real­is­tic oppor­tu­ni­ty to win the school’s ninth nation­al title in hock­ey. The Pio­neers lost four key seniors — Erich Fear, Tyson McLel­lan, Liam Fin­lay and Michael Davies — but added sev­en fresh­men and two grad­u­ate trans­fers to begin this season.

Car­le said the long absence away from his team amid the pan­dem­ic has cre­at­ed chal­lenges. But he’s con­fi­dent the Pio­neers will overcome.

“What you wor­ry about the most is their men­tal state more than any­thing,” Car­le said. “Most of the guys have been able to access ice and weight facil­i­ties to where their bod­ies are fine. But we’re look­ing at quite an extend­ed time here of being able to prac­tice. Our big mes­sage has been: ‘In five year’s time, when you look back on these few months, look back on it with pride of how we took advan­tage of it.’”