The Illinois men’s hockey club returns home this weekend after passing its first road test with flying colors.

The American Collegiate Hockey Association’s (ACHA) third-ranked Illini took care of business in its first two Central States Collegiate Hockey League (CSCHL) games, beating the St. Louis University Billikens 6-0 and 16-0 last weekend on the road to improve to 4-0 on the season.

This weekend the Illini return home to face off against ACHA Division-I Independent Central Oklahoma at the University of Illinois Ice Arena at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

“I thought we played well all last weekend but we still have a lot of work to do,” head coach Chad Cassel said. “St. Louis’ program is definitely down and it’s not really a team we want to measure ourselves against.”

Last weekend the Illini dominated the Billikens by outscoring St. Louis 22-0 and out-shooting them 110-23.

Overall, 17 different Illini came away with at least one point last weekend.

In last Saturday night’s game five different Illini players each had two goals while junior forward Nick Fabbrini walked away with a hat trick. Sophomores Jason Nemeth and Mike Mannina, juniors Drew Heredia and Kevin Wicklin, and senior Mike Kincaid all finished with four points in Saturday night’s 16-0 blowout.

“We have great balance on this team,” Cassel said.

“We have four lines that play well and what you might think is our fourth line could be our best line on one particular night. It’s good because it doesn’t allow teams to focus on one particular line,” Cassel said.

Of Illinois’ 22 goals made on the weekend, 11 came via Illinois special teams.

The Illini were a combined 9-for-22 on the power play last weekend and had two shorthanded goals.

“We need to keep getting a lot of shots on the power play,” sophomore forward Jason Pringle said.

“Sometimes we try to set up the perfect play when we should just be getting the puck to the net. We just need to keep it simple and shoot and put rebounds in the back of the net,” Pringle said.

Not to be overshadowed by the Illini offense, Illinois goaltenders senior Mike DeGeorge and freshman Mike Burda, both recorded their first shutouts of the season.

Burda’s shutout came in his first career start in net, as he gave DeGeorge the night off on Saturday and faced just eight shots but shut the door on every one of them.

“We have unbelievable goaltenders,” freshman forward Matt Jennings said. “DeGeorge is a senior that is having a huge year for us so far and Burda got a shut out in first start, and you can’t start your career off any better than that.”

So far this season the Illini have scored 35 goals in four games and have allowed only five, while out-shooting their opponents 200-to-65. They will look to widen their goal differential gap again this weekend against the Bronchos of Central Oklahoma.

Central Oklahoma comes into this weekend’s games with a 2-2 record, but played the ACHA’s No. 5-ranked Iowa State tough on the road, losing to the Cyclones 4-3 in overtime last Friday in Ames, Iowa.

“They’re going to be a tough opponent for us,” Pringle said. “They played Iowa State really well last weekend, so we can’t take them lightly and just have to go out there and play hard and play our game.”