After beating Michigan State twice last weekend, Illinois hockey is 5-0 on the season. Three of those wins came on the road at Northern Illinois and Illinois State. 

Putting up five straight wins to start the season would be viewed by the common outsider as perfect, an A-plus. 

Illinois head coach Nick Fabbrini isn’t an outsider. He’s had his red pen ready to take note of the Illini’s miscues, which have brought down his grade of the team so far. 

“Somewhere in the range of a B or B-minus, we’ve done some things well but we really have made a lot of games more difficult than they should be and shot ourselves in the foot quite a few times, not only with our decision making but also our discipline,” Fabbrini said.

Discipline has been something the Illini have been battling with throughout the early part of the season, and had more issues with it against Michigan State. Illinois received three disqualifications during the first game of the series. The excess amount of penalties were one of the main reasons the game had to go all the way to a shootout before Illinois salvaged the victory. Fabbrini was quick to take the blame for the disciplinary issues his team has been facing on the ice.

“A lot of that’s on me. I certainly don’t coach our guys to play that way, but I obviously haven’t done a good enough job with dissuading stupid penalties,” Fabbrini said. 

While the lack of discipline might seem to suggest inexperience, there are a few players getting their first major chances at ice time who impress Fabbrini. Two whom Fabbrini mentioned specifically were sophomore goalie Zev Grumet-Morris and freshman defenseman Joe Ritondale. 

Ritondale made the transition to the college level without playing any junior hockey, something many of the Illini did between high school and college. 

“The transitions been great, having older guys on the team has really helped me out. We have a big incoming freshman class but the older guys kind of take us in under their wing and help us transition to the ACHA game,” Ritondale said.

Illinois will have to improve its grade from Fabbrini against its strongest opponent yet this weekend at Colorado State. 

The Rams are only in their second year as a Division I ACHA program, but they’ve already seen steady improvement. In the latest ACHA rankings, the Rams came in as the first team receiving votes outside of the top 25, while the Illini were slotted at 15. 

The weekend’s matchups will be home games of sorts for the Illini, but will be played a few hours outside of the Champaign-Urbana area. Illinois will square off with Colorado State at two different arenas in Chicago, one being Johnny’s Ice House, the practice home of the Chicago Blackhawks. This will be the second year Illinois has hosted home games in Chicago last season being the first, where the Illini only played at Johnny’s.

“We’re excited about it, I think it’s a good opportunity for exposure for not only just our program but the ACHA in general,” Fabbrini said. “The league is definitely growing and Chicago is a big hockey city, so I think it’s good for the high-school-aged players up there to be exposed to good ACHA hockey.”

Brett can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @Blerner10.