Frozen Four final set
Denver and Wisconsin will play for the NCAA men’s hockey title Saturday at 5:30 p.m. ET, after Denver beat Michigan 4–3 in double overtime to reach the final. Denver’s win came on a second‑overtime goal from defenseman Kent Anderson, a result that keeps Denver chasing its 11th national championship while Michigan’s drought now stretches decades, and ESPN, Yahoo and the Denver Post covered the semifinals and schedule. (espn.com) (sports.yahoo.com) (denverpost.com)
Denver needed 87 minutes and 25 seconds to get there, and the goal that finally ended it came from defenseman Kent Anderson, who scored at 7:25 of the second overtime to beat Michigan 4-3 in Las Vegas on Thursday night. That set up a national title game between Denver and Wisconsin on Saturday, April 11, at 5:30 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association bracket. The semifinal looked finished in regulation when Michigan led 3-2 late, but Denver freshman Clarke Caswell tied it with 2:46 left, which is the hockey version of hitting a game-tying three in the final minute and then surviving two extra periods. Michigan still poured on pressure after that, outshooting Denver 52-26 for the game, but Denver goaltender Johnny Hicks stopped 49 shots and 21 of them came in overtime. Wisconsin reached the final first by beating North Dakota 2-1 in the earlier semifinal, and the Badgers got both of their goals in a 27-second burst in the first period before hanging on the rest of the way. So the championship game is not No. 1 Michigan against No. 2 North Dakota, which was the bracket many people expected when the Frozen Four began. It is Denver, a No. 2 regional seed, against Wisconsin, which is back in the title game for the first time since 2010. Denver is chasing its 11th national championship, which would extend the record it took over in 2024 when the Pioneers won their 10th and moved ahead of Michigan’s nine. Michigan’s side of the story is the opposite: the Wolverines still own nine titles, but their last one came in 1998, so this loss pushes the drought to 28 years. There is history between the finalists too, because one of Denver’s three losses in championship games came against Wisconsin in 1973. Denver has won every title-game trip since then, including the 2024 championship over Boston College. Denver also brings a 12-game winning streak and a 16-game unbeaten streak into Saturday, which is why a team that entered as a lower seed now looks like the tournament’s hottest team. One game is left, and it is between the program with the most men’s college hockey titles and the program tied for the fourth-most, with Denver trying to get to 11 and Wisconsin trying to get to seven.
