ST. CLOUD, Minn. — Instead of taking the team bus to work late Friday afternoon, University of Wisconsin men's hockey coach Mike Eaves walked by himself, the collar of his black coat pulled up tight against the chilly wind.

It's only a mile or so from the Radisson Hotel to the National Hockey Center here, so Eaves had ample time to think about his game plan and how it might produce the ideal outcome against St. Cloud State.

After UW claimed a gotta-have-it 2-1 Western Collegiate Hockey Association victory, Eaves confirmed that the approach couldn't have been much better.

Aside from one early glitch, the 13th-ranked Badgers had their way in a duel that looks a lot closer than it was.

They generated 34 shots, held one of the most skilled offenses in the nation to 15 and battled an elite set of special teams to a draw.

They also controlled the pace — slowing it and accelerating it to fit their needs — quieting a boisterous crowd of 6,075 en route to perhaps the best road performance of the season.

"This would rank up in that area," Eaves said.

As a result, UW (15-13-7 overall, 11-11-5 with 27 points in league play) maintained sole possession of fourth place heading into the series finale tonight and pushed its unbeaten streak against the Huskies to 14 games (11-0-3).

A berth in the top five — which guarantees home ice for the first round of the WCHA playoffs — is at stake when the Badgers close out their regular season tonight.

St. Cloud State (16-14-3, 11-12-2, 24 points) and Minnesota State-Mankato remain tied for fifth place, three points back with three games to play.

Senior defenseman and captain Davis Drewiske (power play) and junior center and assistant captain Ben Street scored goals 1 minute, 1 second apart to open the second period and UW hung on with guile, smarts and some luck.

Junior goaltender Shane Connelly was credited with 14 saves — roughly three of which were high-grade stops — and got some help with 15.9 seconds remaining when a wrister by winger John Swanson from the hash marks dinged off the crossbar.

"They came out desperate to play," St. Cloud coach Bob Motzko said of the Badgers. "They've got two games to go and they want to stay ahead of us. That's how they played."

The 12th-ranked Huskies came into the night with the top three scorers in the WCHA — right wingers Ryan Lasch and Andreas Nodl and center Garrett Roe — as well as power play and penalty-killing units that rank in the top 10 nationally.

But while Lasch scored on the power play early in the first period, that trio finished with two shots total and was a twosome when the horned sounded because Roe was assessed a 5-minute major penalty and game misconduct for checking sophomore right winger John Mitchell into the boards late in the second.

"We talked about if you're going to beat this team, you're not going to shut them down completely," Eaves said. "You want to limit them and their offensive people. We didn't shut them down, but we did limit them."

The Badgers did a great job in transition, moving pucks in and out of each zone with relative care.

And when shots were available, they were taken for the most part, keeping St. Cloud goaltender Jase Weslosky (32 saves) on his toes.

"We didn't force things," said UW sophomore right winger Michael Davies, who was credited with two assists and split the game puck with sophomore defenseman Jamie McBain (two assists). "We kept it simple."

Motzko rattled off a litany of things the Huskies did wrong — poor penalties and the inability to get anything going in transition topped the list — before repeating some thoughts that came to life when UW swept his club earlier this year. He said his team turned in an effort he called "nice" and "cute."

"They bring out the nice in us," Motzko said.

The Badgers need at least a point tonight to go into their bye week with any sense of comfort.

That means replicating one of their best road efforts of the season.

"The crowd wasn't in it much once we got going," Street said. "We didn't give up very many shots. We kind of controlled it, I felt. It was one of our better wins for sure."