After missing the American Collegiate Hockey Association National Tournament last year for the first time in team history, the No. 8 ISU hockey team is preparing to make their return, where they will play No. 9 Oklahoma on Saturday after their first-round bye. The Cyclones have been working on some things to add to their repertoire.

In fact, the preparations began last Friday and Saturday in their two-game set against Waldorf College. In their game on Saturday, which they won 10-2, the Cyclones ran a system with one attacker in the offensive zone with the rest of the team waiting to play defense once they had a big lead.

“That’s one of the systems we wanted to work on this game, and it was kind of a trial run to see if it was going to work out with our team dynamic, which it did,” said team captain Brian Rooney. “It was nice to know that that’s something we can put in our repertoire in addition to all the other systems we have right now.”

The Cyclones have a total of four practices in Ames this week — Monday through Thursday — before taking off for Cleveland for the ACHA tournament. They will get one 45-minute practice in Cleveland on Friday.

On Monday, ISU coach Al Murdoch was running his team through some additional power play systems they don’t normally run.

“We have a tendency to settle in on a couple of different options, and then the opponent figures that out, and they defend it,” Murdoch said. “We’ve got to have three or four options. Options three and four we may not use that often, but we know they’re available.”

Sophomore forward Jon Feavel, who has played in every game for the Cyclones this season and has 20 goals and 20 assists, said even with the little work they’ve put into these extra systems, they will be ready for them if they get called up this weekend at nationals.

“That right there is just a matter of putting the habits to the name,” Feavel said. “It’s all kind of stuff that we go through and a lot of the guys already know.”

Along with the extra systems they’ve been working on, Murdoch has been keeping them all in a positive mood and even going so far as to have them celebrating when they score goals in practice. Junior Derek Kohles said that while they stay focused, they also mess around a little bit to keep the attitude light.

“We mess around, but at the same time everyone’s pretty focused and trying get done what we have to do,” Kohles said. “Because we know what we have to do to win, and you can’t be too serious all the time.”