When it comes to analogies, UW head coach Mike Eaves has a brain full of them. He has one for pretty much every situation his hockey team — or anyone else, for that matter — might come across.

According to him, losing Brian Elliott was like a football team losing its quarterback. When goals are scarce and hard to come by, he uses the baseball analogy of manufacturing goals.

Of course, he has had an analogy for this entire hockey season. His team has been climbing a mountain and is hoping to reach the peak — or accomplish its main goal — by ending the season with a national championship.

And each player, each of whom undoubtedly has to go through four years worth of Eaves analogies, has a few that stick out in his mind.

For junior defenseman Jeff Likens, it is one he doesn't fully understand.

"I've got one where he's talking about golf, but he talks about golf and ping-pong, and when you start off, you've got to put the ball in play," Likens said. "The puck's already in play. … I don't get it."

For sophomore center Joe Pavelski, who hails from northern Wisconsin, his favorite analogy involves fishing.

"I kind of like 'Pull the fish in the boat' at the end of the game," Pavelski said. "He comes in and we're just trying to do our thing and play a really good third period and be solid, and you've just gotta get it in."

Perhaps it is not much of an analogy, but if there was a message heading into this weekend's match-up between No. 3 Wisconsin and Michigan Tech, it may be, "Never let anything surprise you."

That's just what the Huskies did to the Badgers back in December when they handed UW its first loss in WCHA play, a 4-2 upset at the Kohl Center.

Despite the wake-up call to the league, Michigan Tech has continued to surprise teams every week since then, as the Huskies have garnered at least one point in every league series since. That stretch includes a sweep of Duluth and a tie against Minnesota last weekend.

"The way the league goes, anybody can beat anybody," Likens said. "Everybody knows they have good players, a good power play and Chris Conner is unbelievable."

Conner, a senior forward who has 26 points in 30 games, has been a bona fide Badger-killer throughout his career. He has six goals and six assists in 10 career games against UW, including a goal and an assist in Michigan Tech's victory earlier this year.

"He's a little shifty player. He's really smart and does everything really well," Likens said. "We've just go to make sure we play good as a team defensively. We've just got to know when he's out there."

While Conner will probably be the spark plug for the Huskies, the Badgers hope they can get a jump-start with the return of junior goalie Brian Elliott. Wisconsin has been without its leader between the pipes for the past four weekends after he went down with a knee injury in practice, but he is expected to play in one of the two games this weekend.

The nation's leader in goaltending — with 1.40 goals against average and a .944 save percentage — the Badgers just haven't been the same team without him.

"I think [getting him back] would be a pretty big boost," Pavelski said. "You know what he can do, some of the saves he can make. But we can't [think] that just because he's back there, he's going to do it for us."

Pavelski, who centers the team's usual go-to line, which also includes Robbie Earl and Adam Burish, especially could use a boost as of late. Without Elliott behind him, the team's co-leader in scoring with 36 points has just one goal and four assists in the past seven games.

"We've had a lot of chances. It's just not coming like we thought it would be at this time of year," Pavelski said. "But at any game, at any second, we can bust out and get going anytime. We know that."

But while Pavelski would like to start manufacturing some goals down the stretch, it all comes back to the big-picture analogy of climbing the mountain and reaching the peak.

"It's definitely still the mountain. That's our journey," Pavelski said. "We're trying to get to the top."