Two weeks ago, with the Wisconsin men’s hockey team coming off an ugly two-game set against the Minnesota Golden Gophers (punctuated by a dreadful 8-1 loss Saturday), a reporter asked head coach Mike Eaves, “Was there anything positive you took out of this weekend?”

Eaves paused, then smiled weakly before replying.

“Our power-play scored [goals in] back-to-back [games],” Eaves said.

He compared the Badgers’ situation to one he faced during his time as an assistant coach with the Calgary Flames, recalling head coach Bob Johnson addressing the team after a particularly gruesome loss in which the Flames’ only goal had come on the power-play.

“You know, fellas,” Eaves remembered Johnson saying, “I know we lost, but that was the greatest power-play goal I have ever seen.”

“You know what?” Eaves continued, returning the focus to his own team. “There was a positive. Our power-play over the last couple of weekends has been a very positive factor.”

At the time, it sounded like little more than a desperate answer to a difficult question, but in retrospect, it’s apparent that Eaves was on to something.

The Badgers are 3-0-1 since leaving Minnesota, including this past weekend’s sweep against the Michigan Tech Huskies, and the improved power-play has been a big part of the team’s recent success.

UW has notched 10 goals with a man-advantage in its last eight games (the same number the team totaled in its first 28 games combined), going 5-2-1 in that span. Four of the 10 came against Michigan Tech, as the Badgers squeezed out a 3-2 win Friday before torching the Huskies 9-5 Saturday night.

According to Eaves, Wisconsin’s power-play progress is directly attributable to a simplification in strategy.

Eaves described the team’s current philosophy as “pass-pass-pass-shoot,” which essentially means that the Badgers are less concerned with player movement than they are with getting the puck on the net early and often.

“We tried some things early in the year, and it wasn’t working,” Eaves said, “And now we seem to have evolved into a power-play that keeps it pretty simple.

“The guys are working hard, and because of the simplicity of what we’re trying to do, it’s been pretty effective.”

Of course, the relative weakness of UW’s recent opponents (of the team’s last eight games, only the two in Minnesota were against a team in the top half of the WCHA) makes it difficult to gauge exactly how much progress the Badgers have made.

Eaves figures this weekend’s match-up with the Fighting Sioux of North Dakota will provide a better measuring stick, despite UND’s recent struggles.

A month ago, UND trailed only Colorado College for the WCHA lead, but the Fighting Sioux have fallen on hard times of late. A seven-game winless streak has dropped North Dakota to fifth place and jeopardized the team’s chances of landing home-ice in the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

Still, Eaves feels that at this point, Wisconsin has to regard the Sioux as a better team. But, he said, “I’m actually glad we’re playing them, because I think it goes along with the theme of getting ready to play our best hockey, [and] to play an opponent that’s above [us] is going to draw that out, [and] that in itself is going to set us up for the following weekend no matter who we play.

“So it’s a good stepping stone for us.”

When questioned as to his team’s prospects for the conference playoffs, Eaves responded with a bit of wisdom he said he had picked up from a book recently: “No one knows enough to be pessimistic.”

There’s no sense in letting pessimism complicate things when you’re trying to keep it simple.