That’ll be the case for the Northern Michigan University hockey team this weekend. Not only will the Wildcats face Michigan Tech in a home-and-home series, they’ll be trying to clinch home ice in the first round of the WCHA playoffs.

One win over the Huskies should do that.

NMU (17-13-4, 15-10-1-1 WCHA) had a chance to accomplish that feat last weekend with a sweep at Lake Superior State, but the ‘Cats could only manage a split with the struggling Lakers.

For Northern head coach Grant Potulny, though, the rivalry with the Huskies (18-14-3, 13-11-2) and the WCHA Tournament positioning will take a back seat in favor of Friday’s Senior Night, when three Wildcats will be honored — forwards Darien Craighead and Luke Voltin along with defenseman Phil Beaulieu.

Northern Michigan University captain Phil Beaulieu passes the puck to a teammate during the first period of a game against Alaska-Anchorage on Jan. 10 at the Berry Events Center in Marquette. (Photo courtesy Daryl T. Jarvinen)

“They’ve been through a lot with us,” Potulny said Tuesday. “Obviously, this is Year 3. You have all-league players. You have All-Americans (Beaulieu). The things you remember about seniors, you don’t remember wins and losses or the accolades.

“You remember getting stuck in the Chicago airport and spending the night with them. You remember all the conversations you’ve had and now a lot of them, there’s been a lot of conversations.

“The thing that is great to see is that Darien is playing some of his best hockey, Luke is having a career year and I think with Phil, the best is yet to come this year with him. He was a little banged up, he was a lot banged up for a lot of the year and he’s kind of starting to get healthy.

“A healthy Phil Beaulieu or a healthy player is a completely different scenario than a guy who has a hard time practicing. Now he’s healthy. I think for him, the best is yet to come.”

The focus may be on the seniors, but Potulny is well aware of the WCHA standings and knows that will take a team effort to beat the Huskies and hold on to home ice.

“If you go through kind of the history of the games that we’ve had with Tech, I mean very few of them are decided by more than one goal,” the coach said. “They have a great goalie (Matt Jurusik) and it’s funny, you go through the video and you’re trying to prepare for an opponent, it’s the same two teams.

“We haven’t changed much. They haven’t changed much. Do special teams change? Yeah. Do we have injuries that we didn’t have then? Yes. But fundamentally and systematically, it’s the same two teams.

“It’s gonna be, obviously, which team is gonna be able to execute because I would have to believe that both teams will compete very hard in a rivalry-type game and which team is gonna be able to make a few more plays than the other team and who can finish.”

While the Wildcats are in third place, the Huskies sit sixth, but are just six points behind NMU. A sweep puts Tech in a tie with Northern, so depending on how the rest of the games shake out around the conference, there’s still a chance for the Huskies to get home ice in the first round.

NMU had a chance to clinch that last weekend, but the Wildcats looked flat-out bad Friday night as the Lakers slapped six goals into the net in a blowout loss. However, Northern bounced back Saturday as its power play came alive for two goals and goaltender Nolan Kent held Lake State to just one goal.

“It was important that we played the way we played,” Potulny said. “The goals, yeah, nice to score and nice to win, but it was the way we played the game.”

Potulny has said the last couple of press conferences that his team will be playing at home in the first round of the playoffs and he thinks the Wildcats are in a great spot to earn that opportunity this weekend.

“Here’s the thing that I said to the guys on Saturday morning,” he said. “They hear me every year and they say you can’t win the league in the first half of the year, but you can lose it. So the converse side of that is all the games that you win in September, October, November, they all count. That run in January, they all count.

“Even though we went five games without getting a point, we didn’t move in the standings and that’s because we won a lot of games. So we put ourselves in a good spot and we’re still in that same spot with a weekend to play and left to go.”

Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.