Wisconsin won the opening draw and the Men’s Frozen Four semifinal was underway in Las Vegas. The first semifinal of the Men’s Frozen Four began at T-Mobile Arena with North Dakota and Wisconsin facing off in a game packed with NHL talent.
There were 17 NHL draft picks in the two lineups, with North Dakota carrying 11 and Wisconsin six. Buffalo, New York, the New York Islanders, Detroit and Calgary were each represented by two draft picks in the first semifinal, a sign of how much pro-level pedigree was on the ice from the start.
Outside the arena, Wisconsin and North Dakota fans had gathered at Frozen Fest before puckdrop, turning the area around T-Mobile Arena into a pregame meeting place as the semifinal approached. The live updates from Las Vegas came with the 2026 DI men’s hockey season down to four teams: Denver, North Dakota, Michigan and Wisconsin.
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That quartet brought 33 combined national championships into the final weekend. Denver owns 10 titles, Michigan nine, North Dakota eight and Wisconsin six. Denver has won national championships in 2017, 2022 and 2024, while Michigan has not claimed a title since 1998 and North Dakota last won in 2016.
North Dakota arrived with the sharpest recent form, having outscored its opponents 8-0 in its first two tournament games. Wisconsin came in as the only team in the field to finish outside the top five in the NPI and nearly missed the tournament because of bid stealers in other conferences. That made the Badgers the long shot in a semifinal where both the résumé and the stakes were easy to measure. The next 60 minutes would show whether Wisconsin’s thin path into the bracket could hold up against one of the tournament’s most decorated programs.
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For now, the opening faceoff had already delivered the central fact of the night: the semifinal was on, the crowd was in place, and two teams with a combined 17 draft picks were trying to keep a championship season alive in Las Vegas.
