Only Notre Dame, Michigan's arch rival, stands in the way.

The Michigan hockey team lived up to Pearson's image for the team, but it would be Notre Dame that would emerge on top, as forward Jake Evans found the back of the net with 3.7 seconds remaining to send the Fighting Irish to the National Championship with a 4-3 victory.

Notre Dame (28-9-2) will face Minnesota-Duluth (24-16-3) on Saturday in the national championship game (7:30 p.m., ESPN2).

It was the fifth meeting of the season between the two teams, with the Fighting Irish taking the 3-2 series edge.

Notre Dame last made the title game in 2008, ultimately losing to Boston College.

"I think our game plan was to keep them off the power play", Calderone said.

Notre Dame quickly retaliated twice, once on the man-advantage. He's emotionally, mentally and physically in control, " Jackson said.

John Buccigross, Barry Melrose and Quint Kessenich on the Call from Saint PaulESPN's lead hockey play-by-play commentator John Buccigross teams up with lead hockey analyst Barry Melrose and reporter Quint Kessenich to call the Frozen Four for the sixth consecutive year. "I think everybody anticipated that it would be even better than it was a year ago".

One might look at Gross' production over his four years with the Irish and see him as a model of consistency. "I've gone through it once already not really having to worry about the pressure of the game kind of took those jitters away from last night and moving to tomorrow night, I feel really good". Calderone and junior defenseman Joseph Cecconi got the assists.

UMD qualified for the national tournament on the final day of conference playoffs, when six conference championship games across the country had to go its way. Head to head results are a part of the PairWise formula; so the Irish defeat that the Gophers several days at four games, but Minnesota went 2-1-1 from the Buckeyes. But I saw Cam flying down ... and he's got really good speed, so I knew he was going to try and make a play, so I think why not get one more shot.

"I came in as a pure offensive defenseman, but I definitely consider myself more of a two-way guy now", he said. "That's our hope at MI, that every sport can compete for Big Ten championships and when you compete for a Big Ten championship you can compete for a national championship". With a few coaching changes, now another one at Minnesota, any time there's a coaching change - especially with the high quality coaches they bring in - the league only gets better and better.