BOWLING GREEN — Bowling Green State University will return to the road for a Western Collegiate Hockey Association series at Lake Superior State this Friday and Saturday. Both contests will begin at 7:07 p.m.

BG enters this series in third place in the WCHA standings with an 11-4-5-2 league mark good for 40 points; the Falcons are ranked No. 14 nationally with a 14-8-6 overall mark. Lake Superior State is 6-18-4 overall and stands ninth in the 10-team WCHA with a 4-13-3-0 mark that gives them 15 points.

Here’s a closer look at BG hockey heading into this weekend.

A LOOK BACK: The Falcons are coming off a good weekend as they swept Anchorage at the Slater Family Ice Arena. A BG team “angry” after getting swept at Northern Michigan the previous weekend scored four quick goals and cruised to a 6-2 victory on Friday, then overcame a 2-0 first-period deficit to post a come-from-behind 3-2 victory on Saturday.

Bowling Green coach Chris Bergeron said he was happy with the way his team played over the weekend.

“Obviously we jumped out to a good lead Friday when pucks went into their net,” he said. “The only thing I thought was different was that the puck didn’t go into the net Saturday – and two ended up in our net.

“I thought the process both nights was strong, and I thought our special teams both nights were pretty good. … As I look back at the weekend – objectives-wise, process-wise, energy, intensity of our team – I was pleased with the way the weekend went.”

Did the fact that the third-place team in the WCHA had come from behind the beat the league’s last-place team on Saturday bother Bergeron?

“Not even a little bit,” he said. “We had the chances at north of 30, and we gave up less than 15. We went offsides a couple of times, we didn’t reach our faceoffs objective – there were some nit-picky things [wrong]. …

“I look at it this way: They are a competitive team, and they have a say in what’s going on. We got every bounce on Friday, and they got a couple of good bounces Saturday, and we had to find a good way to come back and win. …

“I thought we played well both days. I believe you get what you deserved, and ultimately we got what we deserved.”

A LOOK AHEAD: The Falcons will be facing a Lake Superior State team that lost twice by identical 3-2 scores at Northern Michigan last weekend, giving the Lakers five losses in their last six games.

When the two teams met at the Slater Family Ice Arena in mid-November, they skated to a 2-2 tie on Friday (with BG winning a shootout for the extra point) before the Falcons claimed a 5-2 win on Saturday.

“Lake Superior’s really good at home,” Bergeron said. “I think their top six forwards or so are really good, and they’ve got some guys in the back end who can help with the offense.”

Offensively, senior forward J.T. Henke leads the Lakers in points with 24 thanks to eight goals and 16 assists; those 24 points tie him for eighth-best in the WCHA. Sophomore Max Humitz leads LSSU in goals with 11, while junior Anthony Nellis is tied with Henke for second with eight; junior Diego Cuglietta is second to Henke in assists with 11.

In goal, junior Nick Kossoff is 13th in the WCHA with a 3.16 goals-against average and ranks eighth with a 90.7 percent save percentage; freshman Mareks Mitens is 15th in both goals-against (4.09) and save percentage (88.1 percent).

While both teams are fighting for playoff positioning, the “fight” is different for the two teams: Bowling Green is looking to earn home ice for as many rounds as possible, while Lake Superior State is in danger of missing the playoffs completely.

That makes no difference to Bergeron.

“I just look at it as both teams playing meaningful games late in the year,” he said. “The games are meaningful for them, and they are meaningful for us. …

“The games are either meaningful or not. And both teams are fighting for something late in the year.”

A LOOK INSIDE: For the second weekend in a row the Falcons allowed a goal in the waning moments of a period when Anchorage scored a goal in the final seconds of the opening period Saturday.

“I’m a little bit concerned about that: Guys not being totally aware of the situation and the time of the period,” Bergeron admitted.

But he also admitted there’s no easy fix to that problem.

“I wish there was,” Bergeron said. “Simulating that in practice is next to impossible.

“There’s no way to simulate the intensity the game, especially this time of year. And that’s especially true when you’re talking about the last seconds of a game.”

When asked what area he wished to change from the first meeting of the two schools, Bergeron pointed to his team’s struggles to clear the puck out of its defensive zone.

“That last series against Lake Superior we spent too much time in our own zone,” he said. “We turned over too many pucks and we weren’t ‘clean’ in our own zone. …

“I don’t have a number of ‘when it’s right’ or ‘when it’s wrong,’ but we need to be cleaner in our own zone. And that’s something we’ve generally done better at lately.”

Contact John Wagner at jwagner@theblade.com, 419-724-6481, or on Twitter @jwagnerblade.

First Published January 26, 2018, 3:00 p.m.