The Wisconsin men’s hockey team entered this weekend’s play with archrival Minnesota with the goal of taking another step towards becoming a great team. While the weekend split leaves the Badgers caught somewhere in the middle of that step, they seem to understand that they are within reach of that goal.

“We can talk about the fact that our record indicates we’re a pretty good team before coming into tonight’s game being 19-6-1,” Wisconsin coach Mike Eaves said after Friday night’s 3-1 victory. “These next five weekends, we’ve talked about this as an opportunity to see if we can go from good to great.”

The win Friday night was an indication that the Badgers were certainly heading in the right direction. While Wisconsin had a six-game winning streak coming into the series, lesser quality opponents and a bye week still left some questions over the legitimacy of the team. Those questions were largely answered as the Badgers shook off the rust and worked hard in earning the “W” Friday night. The confidence gained in that victory was probably the most important aspect of the night.

“This is one game of 10 to see if we can get to that next level,” Eaves said. “So, from an intrinsic standpoint, no matter what we do or how we talk, you have to get confidence by going out and doing things, and by getting a win tonight, gives us that intrinsic feeling of having confidence knowing that we can go out and beat a very good team.”

After chalking up two more “good” periods on Saturday night and being on the verge of taking a giant leap towards becoming a great team, a third period meltdown that allowed the Gophers to score three goals in a comeback 5-3 win seemed to dampen the Badgers’ spirit quite a bit as they realized they’re not quite where they want to be.

“We’re trying to become a great team, but we’re not there yet,” captain Adam Burish said. “Great teams going into the third period with the lead put them away, and we didn’t do that.”

While no one within the Wisconsin program is willing to chalk up the loss to youth, Eaves understands that sometimes young men will make mistakes and that learning from those mistakes is part of the process of becoming a great team.

“We’re dealing with 18, 19, 20-year olds,” Eaves said. “There’s a little disappointment [at blowing the third period lead] but there is also the realization that our job [as a coaching staff] is to help them grow.”

With games with second-place Denver and first-place Colorado College the next two weekends, Wisconsin will have to grow quickly if it wants to keep chasing greatness. According to Eaves, that may actually benefit the Badgers.

“That’s the beauty of our schedule,” Eaves said. “We don’t have time to feel sorry for ourselves, feel bad for ourselves; we have to learn those lessons that we’ll pick out, especially from that third period.”

Even though they let a victory, and a series sweep over their archrival, slip away, the Badgers know just how close they are to becoming a great team.

“We took a step towards becoming a better team then a good team based on our performance last night,” Eaves said. “We were almost there tonight.”

Race for the MacNaughton Cup: The Badgers didn’t receive much help around the WCHA this weekend as Denver cruised past Wisconsin into second place after sweeping North Dakota in Grand Forks. The victories pushed the Pioneers a point ahead of the Badgers with next weekends showdown looming in Denver.

Colorado College maintained first place with a win and a tie against Minnesota State. While CC has a four-point advantage over UW, the Badgers have played two less league games. Denver, who is three points behind Colorado College, also has played two fewer games than the Tigers.

Minnesota is still hanging around in fourth place, but at eight points behind Colorado College and having played the same number of WCHA games, its chances of making a run at the title remain very slim.