This weekend, two of Iowa State’s players will look to close the book on their home seasons and their respective careers — on a high note.

The Cyclones hope to get back on track this weekend against North Dakota State in what is shaping up to be a “barnburner,” coach Al Murdoch said.

Senior forwards Mike Murtaugh and Bill Adolph will play in their final home series as members of the Cyclone hockey team. Despite the emotional high the team might be playing on, coach Murdoch does not believe it will affect the team’s way of playing the game.

“I told the players what our expectations are,” Murdoch said. “It matters not whether we win, lose or draw, it’s how we play the game. We have to play [the game] lights out with a lot of emotion.”

One of the team’s seniors has found a little extra motivation to have a good series this weekend.

“My parents are not going to be able to nationals, so this is going to be one of the last few times they’ll get to see me play this weekend,” Adolph said. “It’s going to be a pretty emotional weekend for me because they’ve been watching me play since I was three.”

In particular, Adolph is hoping to get past the distraction of this series being his last couple of home games and just play hockey.

“I’ve been trying not to think about it,” Adolph said. “I really haven’t prepared for it yet, but it’s going to be pretty hard because this place has been pretty special the last four years to me.”

In light of the its recent loss in the CSCHL championship game, the team would like to not dwell on senior night. They understand that this series will be important in regaining some much needed momentum.

“It’s important to get back that momentum and to not take North Dakota State lightly,” Murdoch said. “It’s important to get our game ready to go. When I was away [at the World University Games] the team lost four out of seven games. That’s less than .500, so we want to get back to where we were before and win every game the rest of the season.”

In addition to the potential for an emotional series, the Cyclones will also be playing short handed. Despite regaining the three players who participated in the World University Games, the CSCHL All-Star Game is on Saturday and the Cyclones are sending a few players. Murdoch does not believe, however, that playing short handed will affect the team. He believes with the team’s resiliency, it will be able to get past that and play its game.

With the regular season coming to a close and players and coaches alike refusing to get too emotional, the team seems more focused than ever before. With one more series before Iowa State prepares for the national tournament, the team agrees that there is a sense of urgency to fix some of the areas of concern that was not there before.

“Saturday night we’ll be missing some players because of the all-star game,” Adolph said. “Friday night is a very important game because it’s the first time we’ll get real game play with our team completely back. I think Friday night’s game will have a little more emphasis because getting back and getting used to those guys and working them back in the lineup is pretty important. We‘ve been able to work out a bunch of kinks with exchanging penalties. The coaches have been calling penalties during practice to keep us in line because penalties really did kill us in the playoffs this weekend.”

The series begins at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, which will also be senior night. On Saturday, the series will wrap up at 7:30 p.m. with Paul Rhoads Appreciation Night.