Colorado College has learned tough lessons from playing top-ranked opponents, but now the Tigers are hoping to earn tough wins alongside them. 

CC hockey hosts No. 16 Providence at Ed Robson Arena during this holiday weekend. Puck drop is 7 p.m. Friday and 6 p.m. Saturday. The Friars are the final test in a challenging stretch for the Tigers, who have faced ranked opponents the past two weekends. CC was swept by rival No. 4 Denver on Nov. 14-15 and claimed two of six points toward conference standings with a regulation loss and overtime win against No. 5 Minnesota Duluth last weekend.

“I think early on in the year, we had some games where we had the puck the majority of the game and we were able to generate a lot of offense and do a lot of what we wanted with the puck, but when you play really good teams, you’re gonna have stretches where you don’t have it as much,” Tigers Head Coach Kris Mayotte said in a Wednesday press conference. “You have to learn that there might be nothing going on out there for 10, 15, 20 minutes and just be OK with that. And I think that’s the progress we’ve seen with this team is we just get more and more comfortable in those situations.”

Mayotte has often praised his players for sticking to the game plan and playing to the team’s identity of staying connected and executing regardless of the situation. But despite CC’s best efforts, the team has fallen short on the scoreboard in recent weeks. The Tigers have a 7-6-1 overall record but are 2-5-1 in conference, which ranks eighth of nine in the NCHC, and have won just once in the last four contests against ranked opponents. 

“You can’t fast forward, you can’t replicate in-game experience in anything that you do, any video session, any team meeting or practice,” Mayotte said. “And so the more we’re in those situations, the more and more comfortable we get, and this past Saturday, I thought, was the most calm we’ve been. The most we’ve been able to just continue to execute, find that extra pass, hang on to the puck for the extra second, which is a really good sign because it tells me that our minds were calm.”

This weekend marks CC’s first nonconference series since Oct. 17-18 at Northern Michigan. This is a return series against the Friars, whom the Tigers visited in December of last year. Mayotte coached under Friars head coach Nate Leaman from 2014-19, helping Providence win an NCAA title in 2015.

The Tigers coach said this weekend’s nonconference bout is important for the team’s hopes of making the NCAA Tournament next spring. This season, college hockey stopped using PairWise rankings to determine at-large berths into the 16-team tournament, instead using the NCAA Power Index. 

“It’s going to have big implications for the NCAA Tournament and just for both teams in general,” Mayotte said. “I think us and Providence are probably feeling similarly about our games right now and our seasons, where you look at the analytics, you look at how many shots they put up versus their opponent in some games, and sometimes they get results, sometimes they don’t.”