If it's all the same to you, University of Wisconsin men's hockey coach Mike Eaves would prefer not to go there.

Asked to assess the final weeks of the regular season in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, Eaves kept his distance.

"It's a can of worms that you open and the possibilities, they could be astronomical as to what could happen," he said. "Our focus is going to be -- as it's been the second half -- is about getting points."

After a WCHA series split with Minnesota State-Mankato a 3-0 loss Friday and 4-2 win Saturday at the Kohl Center here are the nuts and bolts where the Badgers are concerned:

UW remains tied with Mankato for fourth place. Both are 10-10-4 with 24 points and both have four regular-season games remaining.

However, the Mavericks have the tiebreaker with a 2-1-1 record in head-to-head meetings this season.

The Badgers have a three-point cushion over sixth-place Minnesota-Duluth (8-9-5, 21 points) and, for the moment, own the pertinent tiebreaker with more league victories.

However, the Bulldogs have six WCHA games remaining to four for UW.

All four remaining games for the Badgers will be staged on the road. They play at Minnesota Friday and Saturday, then take on St. Cloud State Feb. 29 and March 1.

Seven points separate five teams, ranging from third-place Denver (13-8-1, 27 points) to St. Cloud State (9-11-2, 20 points) and Michigan Tech (8-10-4, 20 points) in a tie for seventh place.

While UW is the only team that will finish the regular season on the road, every team has a prominent degree of difficulty on their schedules.

Mankato must play co-leader Colorado College; Duluth must play co-leaders CC and North Dakota; St. Cloud must play Tech, UW and North Dakota; and Tech must play St. Cloud, Denver and Mankato.

If you're looking for a nugget of encouragement for the 10th-ranked Badgers (14-12-6 overall) it's that they're unbeaten in their last five road games (3-0-2) in league play.

"This time of year, it doesn't matter if you're playing at home, on the road (or) who you're playing," UW senior defenseman and captain Davis Drewiske said. "It's going to be a battle, especially in our league.

"You just have to go into it with that mentality, that you're going to do whatever it takes to get it done. We'll look to do that the next two weekends."

The strength of the WCHA race can be seen in the latest unofficial pairwise rankings, which mimic the formula used to seed and align the 16-team NCAA tournament.

If the season ended today, seven WCHA teams would be in the tournament: North Dakota is tied for second in the pairwise, CC is tied for fourth, Denver is sixth, Mankato and Duluth are tied for eighth, UW is 12th and St. Cloud is tied for 13th.

The Badgers would be assigned to play the Midwest Regional at the Kohl Center.

Mankato coach Troy Jutting said the stretch run will be determined by three things: special teams, goaltending and bounces.

"I think there's a lot of teams that are pretty darn good hockey teams that are very close obviously in the standings," he said. "I think there's going to be a battle all the way."