[media-credit name=’JEFF SCORFHEIDE/Herald photo’ align=’alignright’ width=’336′][/media-credit]One of UW men's hockey coach Mike Eaves' favorite metaphors — and that is one long list — regards the idea of ascending a mountain: Every practice, every game, every week is just another chance to keep climbing closer and closer to the top.

Eaves hasn't brought up that reference a whole lot since he used it seemingly on a daily basis last spring, when his Badgers brought home the program's sixth national championship. But at his press conference Monday, Eaves pulled out the metaphorical mountaintop once again.

"We talk about trying to get to the top of the mountain, and we've faced a lot of different storms this year, different from last year," Eaves said. "It hasn't been as easy a climb as we had last year."

Wisconsin actually took to the mountains — the Rocky Mountains, that is — last week and put their season on the line against Denver in a WCHA best-of-three opening round series.

And though winning a title in 2006 certainly was no picnic, the Badgers actually made a colossally difficult feat — knocking off the No. 11 Pioneers in their own building — look pretty easy with a two-game sweep, sending UW to the Final Five this upcoming weekend.

"I mean, last year, we had our storms," Eaves said. "We seemed to have had a few more this year, and [another one was] to go into Denver at a critical time and knowing that we had to win."

The job isn't done yet, says Eaves: There are still more mountains to climb.

"I think our guys are excited," Eaves said. "I think they know the task at hand. It's a steep cliff to climb here. We got to take one step at a time."

Defend their honor

It doesn't appear Wisconsin is going to get a whole lot of love this week when the WCHA yearly honors are released. This is especially true for the defensive corps, where nobody has really stuck out as a top-billing player.

But that notion in itself probably bodes well for the Badgers.

"The thing about this group, yeah, they're not nominated for any league awards, but as a group, they don't do anything outstanding. But … they're not terrible at all," Eaves said. "They can all play. They're all solid WCHA defensemen. And as a core, I would go to battle with them in a heartbeat. I mean, they play to their strengths."

Eaves has had seven defensemen in his program, since freshman Nigel Williams left the Badgers in November. It speaks to Eaves' trust in each of his blueliners that he has played every single one of them in recent games — opting for the 11-forward, 7-defender active roster as opposed to the template 12-6-2 system.

"Even though they might not be flashy, or you don't see them on the score sheet every night, Brian will be the first one to tell you he's awful glad that they're in front of him," Eaves said. "They help get the numbers that he's had in terms of save percentage and those kinds of things."

WCHA Round-Up

While UW moved on to the Final Five in surprisingly businesslike fashion, some other top dogs made things a little more difficult for themselves. No. 2-ranked and MacNaughton Cup winner Minnesota and No. 3-ranked St. Cloud State needed a decisive third game to finish off their much weaker opponents — at home, no less.

And even once the puck dropped on those third games, the top two seeds nearly slipped right out of the conference playoffs. No. 10 Alaska-Anchorage, owner of an 8-19-1 conference record this season, was up on the Golden Gophers 1-0 Sunday night before Minnesota finished off the Seawolves with a 3-1 victory.

Even more amazing, No. 9 seed Minnesota-Duluth took a 2-1 lead into the third period against St. Cloud State, and the Huskies needed three overtimes to notch a 3-2 win and move into the Final Five.

These tight series came of no real shock to Eaves.

"I mean, our series could have gone to a third game very easily as well," Eaves said. "So it just speaks to the parity. It seems that we talk about it every time we get together and the strength of our conference. So I wasn't surprised at all."

What's unfortunate for the Badgers is if the Seawolves and Bulldogs had yanked the rug under Minnesota and St. Cloud State, Wisconsin would have received the third seed in the Final Five and gone straight to the semis, as opposed to taking part in the play-in contest. But Eaves wasn't bothered by the outcome, which calls for a meeting with No. 16 Michigan Tech Thursday night.

"It really didn't matter who we were going to play. The fact that we've played Tech recently, so we know more about them, the fact that they beat us, I think that that would be a motivating factor," Eaves said. "They're very similar to us. If we were to go to our team and say who are our opponents, and we described them, we would be describing ourselves in many ways."