In what conceivably will be the final bona fide tune-up before the ACHA National Tournament, the No. 2 Penn State ACHA Division I Icers will travel to No. 4 Illinois this weekend for a two-game set.

Illinois' home-ice advantage poses a daunting task for the Icers, more so than any other rink. Icers coach Joe Battista called Illinois' "pond" arguably the biggest rink in the ACHA.

"You take a shot wide of the net there [and] it just goes forever," Battista said.

The Icers (20-6-2) are fresh off a weekend sweep of No. 19 Delaware in which they scored 12 goals.

In addition, Penn State only gave up two goals behind strong goaltending from Paul Mammola.

This weekend's games at Illinois will be the last two away games for the Icers before the national tournament begins.

"They're gonna be tough, but you know what, if you want to win a national championship, we gotta show that we can win on the road," Battista said.

Three of Penn State's road losses this season have all occurred on the Friday end of two-game weekend series.

Each time the Icers have been able to bounce back with a tie and two wins the following Saturday.

It's a colossal accomplishment to win both games on the road this season in the ACHA and Battista attributes that to teams being more competitive throughout the league.

"If you forget No. 1 Rhode Island and look at teams two through 10, no one is consistently winning and part of that is just there's a lot of parity," Battista said.

"Depending on how we do [this weekend], we could end up between three and four in the rankings."

Illinois is currently riding a six-game winning streak, including two wins against No. 8 Robert Morris, the host school for this year's nationals.

Besides Lindenwood, Illinois is the only other team ranked in the top five that the Icers have yet to play this season.

Three of the Icers players are very familiar with the style of Illinois head coach, Chad Cassel, who was the head coach for Team USA in this year's World University Games in Austria.

"Chad likes to be an aggressive coach. His penalty kill will not let us have much time and space to set up our power play," Battista said.

As the No. 4-ranked team, Illinois could possibly swap spots with the Icers if they come away with two victories this weekend.

To ensure his team was well aware of this, Battista tailored his drills to what he thinks his team will see this weekend.

During practice this week, the team worked heavily on speed drills and other game-like situations that they could see in an atmosphere like Illinois.

"It's not a make it or break it weekend by any means but certainly a lot can happen," Battista said.

"We have to be as focused and as disciplined as we've been all year," he said.