It didn’t take the Illinois men’s hockey club long to find its groove in its season-opening games against Oakland University this weekend.

The No. 3-ranked Illini (2-0) tallied 13 goals in two games against the No. 18 Golden Grizzlies (2-2), pounding Oakland 7-2 Friday night and 6-3 in Saturday night’s contest at the University of Illinois Ice Arena. Of the 13 goals, brothers Drew Heredia and J.J. Heredia played a part in all but five.

“I’m very happy with how we played this weekend,” head coach Chad Cassel said. “I thought everyone played well. This was a very good Oakland team, so to come out and win 7-2 and 6-3 it’s a great confidence builder for us.”

The Illini took the ice for their first game of the season Friday night and held nothing back, lighting up the scoreboard for seven goals on 39 shots.

Sophomore forward Jason Nemeth tallied the Illini’s first goal of the season on the power play midway through the first period and added another power play goal in the second period. Of the Illini’s seven goals, five came via the special teams, including a short-handed goal in the second period by junior team captain Drew Heredia that put Illinois ahead 4-0 at the time.

“Our power play did pretty well but our penalty kill was unbelievable,” Drew Heredia said. “We have been working on it in practice and everyone is buying into our system and it worked out pretty good for us.”

Drew Heredia led the Illini on Friday with four points, one goal and three assists, while freshman forward Matt Jennings made the most of his Illini debut with an assist and two goals late in the third period to put away the Golden Grizzlies 7-2.

On Saturday night Illinois didn’t get off to as fast a start, but thanks to a four-goal second period the Illini were able to pull away from the Golden Grizzlies.

After playing to a 1-1 tie after the first period, freshman J.J. Heredia, the younger of the two brothers, finally sparked the Illini and took over the spotlight. With Illinois leading 2-1 J.J. Heredia scored three goals, two shorthanded, in the second period alone to allow the Illini to cruise to a 6-3 victory.

“This weekend was amazing,” J.J. Heredia said. “I had a little bit of the butterflies in the first game, but I was able to settle in and bury the opportunities I had in the second game.”

Despite the Illini’s dominance on the penalty kill and in the offensive zone, Cassel noted the team needs to improve on the power play, the Illini were just 6-of-20 on the power play this weekend and while that may look good on paper, the Illini still missed out on numerous scoring opportunities.

“We struggled a little bit on the power play at times,” Cassel said. “We had power play opportunity after power play opportunity but weren’t able to convert.”

With the two wins over the weekend, the Illini improved to a perfect 20-0 record on season-opening weekends under Cassel since he took over in 1997.

“We wanted to come out and make a statement and show everyone that we are a strong team again this year,” Drew Heredia said. “There is still a long way to go but it’s a good start to the year for us.”