The Illinois men’s hockey club hasn’t started the semester the way it wanted, but the Illini (19-5, 8-2) are hopeful things will turn around as the team heads into the final weeks of conference play.

After two consecutive weekends of non-conference games against Penn State and North Dakota State, the Illini jump back into its conference schedule this weekend when they welcome the Saint Louis University Billikens to town for a pair of Central State Collegiate Hockey League games.

“I think we learned a lot from those two weekends,” head coach Chad Cassel said. “It’s going to prepare us well for the last few league games, because we learned that we can’t just show up and go through the motions and expect to win, no matter who we’re playing.”

Coming off a 5-2 victory against North Dakota State on Saturday that ended the team’s longest losing streak in six years, the Illini look to regain the form that won them 18 straight games at the beginning of the season.

“I think winning again made everyone realize how good it feels to win,” sophomore Nick Fabbrini said. “Even at Ohio and Penn State when we were losing those games we were still out shooting them and getting a lot better scoring chances, but we just weren’t bearing down.”

Because of Illinois’ struggles in the last few weeks, the team has lost its hold on the No.1 ranking in the American Collegiate Hockey Association, tumbling all the way to fourth place.

More importantly, the Illini slid all the way to fifth-place in the CSCHL conference standings with 32 points and would only at most be able to claim a share of the conference regular season title with Ohio.

Even though the Illini realize a share of the title with the Bobcats is unlikely, they know there is a lot of work to be done – with a pair of games at home against eighth-ranked Michigan-Dearborn and a pair of games on the road against long-time rival No. 5 Iowa State.

“Hopefully we can learn from everything that has happened to us the last couple of weeks,” Cassel said. “We have to continue to improve and look towards the league tournament. Part of that is making sure that we continue to win out in our league games and to help our seeding for the league tournament.

But before the Illini can look ahead to their upcoming games with the Wolves and Cyclones, they have to focus their attention on struggling Saint Louis, who comes into this weekend looking to score a huge upset.

The Billikens enter Friday and Saturday’s games at 7 p.m. at the University of Illinois Ice Area with one lone win in the conference and only three wins overall.

“They always play us tough here,” Cassel said. “I know they look forward to coming here and they are going to come out and work hard. I expect two great games.”