All it took for the Wisconsin men’s hockey team to break its longest drought of national title game appearances was a guy who knew a thing or two about Badger NCAA titles.

In just his fourth year as head coach, Mike Eaves guided UW to its sixth national title. As a player, Eaves remains the Wisconsin all-time career points leader with 267 and helped lead the Badgers to the 1977 NCAA title.

After going 1-1-1 in three overtime games to start the season, the 2005-06 Badgers went 13 games before taking another loss. UW took a 26-10-3 record into the NCAA Tournament, and hoped to improve on the previous season, where it came one win away from the Frozen Four.

UW earned the No. 1 seed in the Midwest region and enjoyed the benefit of playing its games at the Resch Center in Green Bay. The Badgers enjoyed an easy 4-0 victory over Bemidji St. in the opening game, highlighted by Joe Pavelski’s hat trick. It took three overtimes for Wisconsin to come out with a 1-0 win over Cornell, but Jack Skille’s goal in the 112th minute advanced the Badgers to the Frozen Four.

Wisconsin continued its home-state advantage, as the Frozen Four was hosted by Milwaukee’s Bradley Center. A 5-2 win over Maine set up a showdown with Boston College for the title.

Tom Gilbert’s third-period goal gave UW a 2-1 win in front of a largely pro-Wisconsin crowd. UW fell behind 1-0 in the first period, but pulled ahead to cap off the program’s seventh 30-win season, finishing 30-10-3.

UW fifth-year senior and current tri-captain Ben Street is the only player on this year’s squad that was a member of that title-winning team. Street had 10 goals as a freshman that season and remembers how determined the 2005-06 team was to win.

“That team was just full of guys who would not lose,” he said. “It was a mindset every game — right from the get-go — that it was national championship or bust. That was the mentality.”