Frozen Four: Denver vs Wisconsin
The NCAA men’s Frozen Four final is set after Denver beat Michigan in double overtime and Wisconsin beat North Dakota in the other semifinal, so Denver advances to the national championship. (timesunion.com) The semis featured four traditional powers — Michigan, Denver, Wisconsin, North Dakota — underscoring that the title game will be between blue‑blood programs. (ncaa.com)
Denver needed two overtimes and 49 saves from goalie Johnny Hicks to get past Michigan 4-3, so the national title game is now Denver vs. Wisconsin on Saturday, April 11, in Las Vegas. Kent Anderson scored the winner 7:25 into the second overtime, turning a semifinal into the kind of game people in college hockey remember for years. (espn.com) Wisconsin got there first by beating North Dakota 2-1 in the earlier semifinal, which means both Thursday games were decided by a single goal. The championship game is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. (ncaa.com) This was not a Cinderella bracket. The Frozen Four in Las Vegas featured Michigan, Denver, Wisconsin, and North Dakota, which is like a basketball Final Four stocked with Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina. (ncaa.com) Denver is chasing national title No. 11, which would add to the program’s record total in Division I men’s hockey. ESPN also noted that the Pioneers are trying to win their third championship in five years, so this is a recent power, not just a historic one. (espn.com) Michigan came in as the overall No. 1 seed and the top-ranked team, but Denver absorbed 52 Wolverine shots and still survived. That tells you what the game looked like: long stretches of Michigan pressure, then one Denver chance from the slot that ended it. (nchchockey.com) Wisconsin’s path looked different. The Badgers controlled the first period against North Dakota with an 18-4 shot edge, then spent the rest of the night protecting a 2-1 lead against one of the tournament’s top seeds. (bleacherreport.com) So the final sets up as a meeting between two programs that know this stage well, but arrived there by opposite routes: Denver through a 4-3 double-overtime track meet, Wisconsin through a 2-1 squeeze. One team just played nearly an extra game’s worth of hockey, and the other got out with a shorter, cleaner night. (espn.com) (ncaa.com)
