With all the hoopla from UW's opening weekend at the Kohl Center come and gone, head coach Mike Eaves and his Badgers can finally take a deep breath, hunker down and get to business, concentrating on the early stages of the WCHA season.

"We've had a couple of very important days of trying to move forward in our system," Eaves said. "I think we've moved forward in some areas of introducing some more stuff that we would like to see our kids be able to do based on the success that we've had. They've been diligent in their effort on the ice."

Wisconsin players and coaches had to deal with the distractions of returning home for the first time as a national title winner and dropping the championship banner. Those things combined with hosting a stingy, talented North Dakota — largely without the help of top scorers Ross Carlson and Jack Skille, along with Preseason All-American defender Kyle Klubertanz — and led to a "disappointing" split with the Fighting Sioux, at least by UW standards.

Nonetheless, that weekend is in the rearview mirror, and No. 2 Wisconsin (2-1-1, 1-1-0 WCHA) continues the homestand against Minnesota-Duluth (1-0-1, 0-0-0), a team that Wisconsin knows firsthand can be more dangerous than it appears.

"Ever since I've been here, they've always been a pretty hard-working, 'pretty good on power play/penalty kill' type of team," senior defenseman Jeff Likens said. "It's going to come down to winning those small battles. We've got to make sure that we get the little things, do all the fundamentals."

UMD, though without a ranking, has won three of its last four contests against Wisconsin and received high praise from the Badgers' head coach.

"They're one of the more talented teams in the country," Eaves said. "They'll come in here, and they'll play hard. They have some ability, and they'll rely on their ability to play hard to get the job done."

"UMD is similar to us, similar to North Dakota in that they work hard," added junior forward Matthew Ford. "They're dogs. They're just aggressive. They play the same kind of hockey as us. They finish all their checks. They race after the puck and go after it."

Bulldogs head coach Scott Sandelin, who played in his college days at North Dakota, has implemented comparable systems to those of the Fighting Sioux into the Bulldogs, making them another team with similarities to the Badgers.

"They play a lot like North Dakota," Eaves said. "[Sandelin] knows those guys very well, I think he likes that way (of playing)."

Bulldogs freshman goaltender Alex Stalock has a tendency to leave the net to handle the puck, which can be a difficult proposition in an environment as hostile as the Kohl Center.

"Well, he's very good at handling the puck," Eaves said. "His process will be decision making. That's the process of any young goaltender that likes to wander and handle the puck, is making good decisions.

"It's going to be interesting how he responds to all that."

Even more intriguing will be the Badgers' response to captain Andrew Joudrey's challenge after Friday night's loss to the Sioux, when he said "shame on us" if the Badgers didn't begin starting games with more enthusiasm.

"We came out a little flat Friday night. Some people took some energy off that banner raising, but all those distractions are gone. We can just get down to playing some hockey," Likens said. "All of our focus is on Minnesota-Duluth — all of their systems, what we have to do to counteract their power play. … We don't have to worry about all that other stuff."

Another obstacle for the Badgers has been early-season injury troubles. Eaves was mum on the status of Carlson, Skille and Klubertanz, though it has been speculated that any or all of the players could be out for significant periods of time due to injuries accrued in the home opener against North Dakota.

Still, Eaves focused on his team's effort in salvaging the split against UND without the benefit of any of those players last Saturday.

"Look how we responded, there was a silver lining there," Eaves said. "It forced us, almost, to play to a higher level, and everybody felt that. That could end up to be a very beneficial thing for us."

Senior center Jake Dowell said that in reaction to the past two weekends, when Wisconsin ended up playing from behind or without key players in the Saturday finale, the Badgers know they have to play hard for two full games of hockey each series.

"There was a wake-up call after the Friday night's game. It was a rude awakening for a lot of guys," Dowell said. "We can't be satisfied or complacent with what we did just because we had a couple of good comebacks the last two Saturday nights. We need to go out and take charge Friday and Saturday and make it a point to do that every weekend."

Dowell added that even with as many as eight freshmen in the UW lineup, the first weekend at the Kohl Center is out of the way, and the expectations have been raised.

"Now we played and we know what to expect and guys know how to play in front of this crowd," Dowell said. "There's no excuses from now on."