Hockey teams will need to rebound off weekend losses while men’s rugby will look to get into the playoffs this weekend.

Men’s ice hockey

Div. II hockey will look to get back to its winning ways against Eastern Illinois University.

The Huskies will face a struggling EIU (1-6) team 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Ice Valley Centre Ice Arena in Kankakee.

“Eastern is one of those sneaky teams,” said head coach Chuck Rinaldo. “They came into our house last year and we beat them pretty well on Friday and they found a way to beat us on Saturday. We can’t take them lightly.”

NIU (5-4-1) team captain Nick Remley wants two victories this weekend.

“We haven’t played our best hockey the past two weekends,” Remley said. “We are going to try and take that out on Eastern and really get the sweep. Not only the sweep, we want to play the way we know we can play.”

Rinaldo knows the Panthers are a desperate team and will look to get after the Huskies.

“They have lost a few games already,” Rinaldo said. “If we don’t right the ship and play three full periods they are a team that can definitely cause some troubles for us. We just have to step it up a little bit, stay focused and stay disciplined.”

The Div. III team will try and record its first victory of the season this weekend.

The Huskies (0-8) will play Illinois State University 9:10 p.m. Friday and 5:50 p.m. Saturday at Pepsi Ice Center in Bloomington.

Team captain JC Weems likes the improvement he has seen from the rookies this year and hopes to see it continue. He also feels NIU’s power play must get better in order to be successful.

“We have been a little bit better taking penalties,” Weems said. “But, I think we had one power play goal this past weekend, which is not good, so we definitely need to work on the power play a little bit.”

Men’s rugby

NIU (2-3) will look to keep its playoff hopes alive versus the University of Dayton this weekend.

The Huskies will play at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Outdoor Recreation Sports Complex.

“Dayton is going to be a pretty tough opponent,” said rugby president Pat Caulfield. “Last year we had a tough game with them. They are going to want to get some revenge because we beat them last year.”

In order for NIU to beat them again, the squad will have to improve in several couple areas.

“We have some guys who are shooting up on defense faster than others,” Caulfield said. “Really that was a big problem [against Bowling Green]: People weren’t coming up and running into the people running the ball. We weren’t coming up and hitting them before they were hitting us, so if we can clean that up and just get more organized — we’re trying to get more organized each week — they will have a tough time trying to stop us.”