A dark cloud of uncertainty hung over Carl Hagelin, Louie Caporusso and Matt Rust’s future following last year’s overtime exit at the hands of Miami (Ohio) in the NCAA Tournament.

There was speculation that the trio of Michigan forwards might not return for their senior season, and instead, sign an entry-level contract with their respective NHL team and report to their minor-league affiliate.

Some believed they weren't going to return for one last go-around that could be filled with so much promise and success — and that's when they decided to stay.

Prior to the start of the season, Caporusso explicitly stated the potential of the veteran-laden roster.

“I think the biggest thing me and Carl can do, and Rust, is bring a national championship here to the University of Michigan again and win one for coach Red Berenson and the coaching staff,” he said this past October.

Well, right now, the Wolverines aren't national contenders.

Granted the team is second in the CCHA behind Notre Dame and has been ranked in the top-10 nationally for a majority of the season. Michigan has had its instances of greatness, where the team played a complete 60-minute game.

Take The Big Chill at the Big House, in which in the Wolverines walloped on Michigan State, 5-0, before a record-setting crowd of 104,173. It was probably the team's best all-around performance of the season.

Hagelin led Michigan with two goals, and Berenson found some secondary scoring in freshman defenseman Jon Merrill — netting two goals of his own. Rust played one of his best games of the year, grabbing three helpers on the night. To say the Wolverines were clicking on all cylinders would be an understatement.

But The Big Chill was just one game, one 60-minute performance ... or damn near close to it. But still, at the end of the day, Michigan hasn't lived up to its preseason billing, and it starts with consistency.

The Wolverines have had seven opportunities to sweep conference opponents, winning both weekend games just twice — both of which were against basement dwellers Lake Superior State and Bowling Green.

It’s certainly a tall-task to defeat any Division-I team on back-to-back nights — especially on the road — but stringing together three, four and five conference wins in a row could lay the foundation for a second-half push toward a regular season title.

“You hope to peak at the right time,” Caporusso said after practice on Thursday. “You want to stay positive obviously, and you want to say that the team is headed in the right direction. I mean that’s the obvious answer.

“The real answer will lie in what we do from here-on-out. I mean, you can speculate and you can predict that you think your team is going in the right direction, but it’s not going to do much if you’re not making that happen.”

For the most part, the team is headed in the right direction, but its compass needle is a little skewed at the moment. Part of it also lies in the inability for Michigan’s top-three scorers to get going on the same night.

Rust hasn't found the back of the net as much as he would like so far, and he'd be the first to tell you that. Same goes for Caporusso, who has just seven goals on the year.

But if you followed the Wolverines last year during their stretch-run to win the CCHA Tournament and advance to NCAAs for the 20th-straight season, you witnessed that streaky firepower from Caporusso — the Cambridge, Ontario native tallied 23 points in Michigan's final 19 games.

For the latter third of the season, Caporusso was playing like the Louie of old, where he was a top-10 finalist for the Hobey Baker Award in his sophomore year. And while a player's worth cannot solely be determined based on statistics alone, both Caporusso and Rust clearly have it in them to put up big numbers — Caporusso's averaged 19 goals per year while Rust had his best season last year, totaling 40 points.

The talent pool and personnel is there.

The coaching — say the name Red Berenson, and that’s enough in itself.

The national contender label and the trio of Wolverines bringing a national title to Ann Arbor for the first time since 1998 — it's still a work in progress.

— Burns can reached at burnmark@umich.edu