Hope springs eternal.

The Wisconsin men’s hockey team is just 1-4-1 in its last six games, all of which came at home. After a surprising 6-2-2 start to the season, the Badgers are currently just 7-6-3 and in the middle of the pack in the WCHA. Any realistic thoughts about making a return trip to the Frozen Four – or the NCAA tournament period – are on the backburner.

But, you wouldn’t know it talking to the team.

“I think we’ve gotten a lot better. We’re really close to being a championship team; a couple breakdowns here and there have cost us a couple games,” defenseman Justin Schultz said. “If we tighten those things and fix that, we should be real fine, go far at the end of the season.”

Schultz should know. He’s one of the veterans on the team. He leads the nation in points for blueliners. He’s been to a national title game.

He’s also just a sophomore.

So you can excuse his view as simple youthful optimism about a young team, or you can look and see his teammates seem to agree with him: the Badgers are a step or two away from competing with the best.

“I think that’s a big part of it, that we are right there,” freshman forward Mark Zengerle said. “It’s just a matter of one or two steps that we’ve got to put into our game.”

The results, to an outsider, might agree. Wisconsin tied No. 8 Michigan last Friday and lost two heartbreaking games in overtime to No. 1 Minnesota-Duluth. Preseason WCHA favorite North Dakota won a close-looking 1-0 game at the Kohl Center.

But subjectively, the Badgers were dominated in the series against the Fighting Sioux, even more so than the lopsided shots-on-goal totals would indicate. Against the Bulldogs, goaltending – which was supposed to be a strength – let the team down in game one.

But at the same time, credit must be given to the No. 15 Badgers, who weren’t supposed to be in a position to be disappointed to begin with.

“I guess before the season everybody was counting us out,” goaltender Scott Gudmandson said. “We had a really good start; I think that surprised a lot of people.”

November seemed to be the point where Wisconsin would find out if it was for real. A trip to Minnesota, followed by visits from UND, UMD, UM and MSU was a murderer’s row of scheduling.

The 3-4-1 November didn’t say anything definitive about the Badgers, except that they’re not quite there – yet.

“We knew going into it, it was going to be a big-time measuring stick and it became just that,” head coach Mike Eaves said. “We lost some games that were close, that shoulda-coulda-woulda, that would have been some statement games for us. But we weren’t quite ready to get over that hump.”

UW’s young squad still has some growing to do, but also showed it’s been improving as well. Eaves said consistency was the big thing he wanted from his team, and that’s still yet to surface.

Against the Sioux, the third-in-the-nation Badger power play disappeared against a veteran team. The offense, in general, was non-existent against a veteran UND team. But the goaltending was there, as Gudmandson stood on his head for the better part of both games.

Yet one week later, he was yanked just 5:15 into the second period against Duluth, after UW gave away a 3-1 lead.

The ingredients seem to be there for Wisconsin. Getting everyone on the same page at the same time is the problem.

“I think against Duluth, the first night, the team was playing a little better, and I wasn’t playing well. It was [untimely],” Gudmandson said. “Against North Dakota, I was playing pretty well, and I don’t think the team was playing very well. We’ve just got to put that together, and I think that will make for some pretty good games.”

“I think we learned we’ve just got to tighten up a few things,” Schultz said. “We’re not too far off from any one of those teams. I think any given night, we could beat any one of those guys.”

The growing pains will continue, though, as Wisconsin regularly starts six or seven freshmen in its lineup. UW knows what needs to be fixed, what needs to be more consistent. It’s simply a matter of consistent execution.

And while Schultz and fellow sophomore Craig Smith think this could be a championship team with the right prodding and production, Eaves is going back to the same goal from the beginning of the season: just get better. From there, things will fall into place.

“That hasn’t changed. It’s such a process,” he said. “I go back and look at my notes after the last time when we had a young team like this. There are little things that are there, we need to work on this, it’s the same things that we need to work on.

“It’s the same process, about not respecting your [opponents] too much, knowing how you have to play in order to beat a good team.”