Urgency is the name of the game. 

With 14 regular-season games left on the schedule, the Colorado College hockey team doesn’t have time for performances like last weekend at Augustana. The Vikings swept the Tigers for the second straight season. CC went 0-8 on the power play and allowed two shorthanded goals. Following the loss on the opening night of the series, the Tigers began Saturday’s contest in sluggish fashion, going down three goals before really playing to their ability. 

For a team that has displayed consistency most of the season, it was a disappointing outing. 

“It’s unfortunate timing. There’s never a good time to start slow. I think that’s the beauty of college hockey and the amount of games that we play is that every single one of them has to have a certain urgency to it,” Tigers coach Kris Mayotte said. “It was disappointing. Our pace in general just wasn’t good, our hunt wasn’t great until, again, it was too late.”

This week, the Tigers (8-9-3) host fourth-ranked North Dakota in a return to National Collegiate Hockey Conference play. Opening faceoff is 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday. The series marks CC’s first home games since Nov. 28-29 against Providence.

But it really doesn’t matter which opponent skates onto the ice at Ed Robson Arena, Mayotte is focused on making sure his team regains that sense of urgency and starts fast both evenings. 

“We have to dictate the first five minutes. We have to be the team that makes the first push and if we don’t, we have to learn how to manage it and get it back and get that momentum going back our way,” he said. “We have a good opponent coming in, but honestly, we haven’t talked about them, we’re not going to talk about them. It’s about finding our game.”

From a conference standpoint, the Tigers sit in seventh place of nine teams with a 2-5-3 league record.  

North Dakota is in first place with eight wins to just two losses in league play. The Fighting Hawks will come into Robson on a hot streak, having won the last nine games. Despite that, the Tigers have had the Hawks’ number of late with a 5-1-1 record against North Dakota in their last seven meetings.

“We’re focused on Friday and the three points on the line there. We need the points. We’re seven points out of a home spot in the playoffs here. That’s what we’re pushing for, that home ice in the NCHC quarterfinals and it’s about getting as many points as we can,” Tigers forward and assistant captain Drew Montgomery said. 

Montgomery, a junior who grew up in Grand Forks, N.D., where the Hawks play, always has a little more energy for games against his hometown team.

A leader on a Tigers roster with 15 new skaters, 13 of whom are freshmen, Montgomery sees the youthfulness of his teammates as both a blessing and a curse. Coming from junior hockey, which features seasons with nearly double the number of games in a collegiate season, there’s a tendency to not fully grasp the urgency of each weekend series. 

But at the same time, the outlook of the younger players is helpful when trying to put a bad weekend in the rearview mirror. 

“When I was a freshman, I was like, ‘Alright, new weekend, new opportunity,’ so I feel like that’s kind of nice, the youthfulness but again, you gotta realize how important these games are and that comes from the older guys,” he said. “These points are huge with the rankings and everything. We gotta be ready to go and every game is super important.”