The series: Both games at Magness Arena. Friday at 8 p.m. (CBSSN and 104.3 FM) and Saturday at 7 p.m. (Root Sports)

Season updates: If there was a turning point for the No. 13 Pioneers’ season it might have started in Grand Forks in early December, when NoDak hammered DU on back-to-back nights, 5-1 and 4-0. Since the Pioneers (13-8-5) were swept in their next series by St. Cloud State, they have gone on a 6-1-3 run to start the new years and placed themselves solidly in the NCHC’s No. 3 position (9-5-2), which would mean a home playoff series in Round 1 of the NCHC tournament. While the Pioneers continue to get scoring from everywhere in the lineup, the top line of freshman Dylan Gambrell (team-high 26 points, 14 in 2016), sophomore Danton Heinen (20 points, including eight in the past seven games, as well as a team-high 10 goals) and junior Trevor Moore (24 points – 11 in 2016 – and a team-best 20 assists) has gone into overdrive. … Since their first meeting with the Pioneers the Fighting Hawks are 8-1-1 and 22-3-3 overall. Their road record (11-1-1) is slightly better than their home mark (10-2-1). NoDak’s strong season is made all the more impressive by the fact both of their top two goalies – Cam Johnson and Matej Tomek – have battled injuries (Tomek has yet to play this season), and first-line forwards Drake Caggiula and Nick Schmaltz have missed multiple games because of injuries. Both forwards and Johnson will be available this weekend. “It will be real intense, fast hockey,” DU coach Jim Montgomery said. “We’ve taken our game to another level (in the new year). It’s a great opportunity to measure how far we’ve come. They’re going to be 100 percent, and that’s what we want. We have lofty goals.”

Here is a closer look at how the teams match up. Statistics are for NCHC play.

Offense: North Dakota has the NCHC’s second-best offense (3.69 goals per game), while DU generates 2.62 goals per game in league play (fifth). Freshman Brock Boeser (a Vancouver Canucks draft pick) is tied for the conference scoring lead with 23 points in 16 games and leads with 13 goals despite not having tag-team partners Caggiula (13 points in 12 games) and Schmaltz (a Chicago Blackhawks pick who has 17 in 12) around recently. Freshman Rhett Gardner has stepped up with nine goals in conference play and junior defenseman Troy Stecher is tied with DU’s Will Butcher for fifth most points by a blue liner in NCHC play with 10. Beyond the top line, center Matt Marcinew has six goals and fellow pivot Quentin Shore has four in NCHC games for the Pioneers. Moore and Gambrell are in the top 10 in the league in assists.

Defense: Bolstered by Johnson’s NCHC-best four shutouts, ND allows the fewest goals per game in the conference (1.81), while DU sits fourth at 2.62. Johnson also leads the league in save percentage (.949) and goals-against average (1.40). Projected third-string junior Matt Hrynkiw filled in admirably in Johnson’s absence and his NCHC gaa (2.47) was impressive. After Tanner Jaillet played well in DU’s first six games of 2016, he was pulled in the opener against Minnesota-Duluth three weeks ago, opening the door for Evan Cowley to play the duration of that game and start the next two. After DU lost its opener at Miami, Jaillet was back in net for the second game. Cowley’s gaa of 2.24 is fourth in the NCHC and his .925 save percentage is third. Jaillet is at 2.70 (seventh) and .916 (fifth). It will be interesting to watch how Montgomery and his staff manage this the rest of the way.

Special teams: NoDak has been very good on the power play (22 percent) and the penalty kill (nearly 88 percent). It has taken the most penalties in the league (73, tied with Colorado College and Western Michigan) but has allowed just nine goals. Gardner twice has scored shorthanded. DU’s power play has climbed to nearly 18 percent, while it’s penalty kill is around 84 percent. Boeser and Marcinew each have three power-play goals. Coaches often talk about 100 percent being a benchmark for combined PK and PP percentages. ND is 110 and DU is 102, both well into plus territory. St. Cloud State (106) is the only other NCHC team ahead of DU in that category.

The last word: “How we played in that second game against Miami is how we need to play every game,” Montgomery said of the Pioneers aggressiveness. “Our physicalness and intensity in every zone showed how hard we can be to play against, how good we can be. The question is can we do it all the time?”