When: Friday at 6:37 p.m. and Saturday at 6:07 p.m.

Listen: 104.3 FM

Watch: nchc.tv (subscription service)

All-time series: North Dakota leads, 122-143-11

Last season: North Dakota went 3-2-1. Each team swept a home series and they tied in the NCHC Frozen Faceoff consolation game before the Fighting Hawks edged the Pioneers in a Frozen Four semifinal on a last-minute goal.

Defending NCAA champion North Dakota (5-3-1, 0-2 NCHC) enters the series reeling from three losses and a tie in its past four games. The Fighting Hawks, however, have a 5-0 mark at home. The Pioneers (6-2, 2-0 NCHC) are on a six-game roll and are completely healthy for the first time this season. They had last weekend off. This is the teams’ only regular-season series.

Offense

Just as the Pioneers lost two thirds of their vaunted top line, so did the Fighting Hawks, but the one who remained for each team has been stellar. Sophomore Brock Boeser (a 2015 first-round pick by the Vancouver Canucks) has 13 points and seven goals (tied for sixth in Division I) and is widely considered one of the best players in the nation. He was the NCHC’s player of the month for October. Fellow sophomore Shane Gersich is right behind him with 12 points and freshman Tyson Jost (the Colorado Avalanche’s first-round pick in June) has 10 points. Junior defenseman Tucker Poolman has seven points. The Fighting Hawks score 3.33 goals per game (tied for 19^th) and fire about 33 shots on goal per game. Denver fires 32 SOG per game but scores just 2.75 goals per outing (tied for 33^rd).

DU’s top-line returnee is sophomore Dylan Gambrell, who sparkled in his return from an upper-body injury two weeks ago against Western Michigan. He has four points in four games. Freshman Henrik Borgstrom, the NCHC’s Rookie of the Month for October, leads the Pioneers with nine points and four goals. Linemates Troy Terry and Jarid Lukosevicius each have six points and three goals. Senior defenseman Will Butcher has seven points. Just eight DU players have scored goals so far, and none of those have come from the fourth line or a defenseman other than Butcher.

Defense

As important as it was for UND to have Boeser return, retaining junior goalie Cam Johnson might have been bigger with all of the defensemen who turned pro or graduated. Johnson has played every game so far, and his numbers are off from a season ago (2.56 goals-against average and .889 save percentage), but that likely has as much to do with the lack of experience in front of him as anything. The Fighting Hawks hold foes to 2.67 goals per game (20^th) and just 23.2 shots per game.

Junior Tanner Jaillet has been superlative in net for DU thus far, going 6-1 with an NCHC-best 1.73 gaa (8^th in Division I) and .931 save percentage (11^th). DU allows just 1.88 goals per game (6^th) and has allowed more than one just once in its past five games. Jaillet sees fewer than 25 SOG per game thanks to a veteran, stingy defense.

Special teams

This is a shockingly mediocre phase for North Dakota, and it’s undoubtedly been a point of emphasis to rectify for the Fighting Hawks coaching staff. North Dakota’s power play is hitting at just 13.3 percent (41^st), and it’s penalty kill is effective just 78.7 percent of the time (49^th). The Fighting Hawks take almost seven minors per game.

The Pioneers are one of the nation’s most disciplined teams, taking just 10 PIM per game. Their penalty kill sits at 84.6 percent (25^th). After staying largely dormant in October, the power play came to life against WMU and now sits at 15.6 percent (33^rd).

Notable

Four of the six players selected to the NCHC’s preseason All-Conference Team will play in this series – Boeser, Gambrell, Butcher and Johnson.