ONE DAY UNTIL SIOUX HIT TOWN ...

Don Lucia said last season that his favorite WCHA road trip was to North Dakota, Health reasons prevented him from going to Grand Forks and the Ralph last year.

Now he gets to welcome the Fighting Sioux to his rink this weekend. "They are a very good team," Lucia said. "They haven't played here at Mariucci Arena in a couple years. It should be a fun weekend for our players and certainly for our fans as well."

For the Gophers to have success in the second half of our season, Lucia said, several things have to happen: "No. 1 we have had enough injuries. We have to stay healthy. We don't have a lot of guys right now. Staying injury-free for the rest of the year is going to be really important for us. Our power-play scoring some goals is going to be important. And just getting to that three- or four-goal mark on a consistent basis as opposed to one or two too many times the first half of the season.

"Defensively, we have been pretty good. Our goaltending has been solid. But improvement in our specialties and improvement in goal-scoring, and to continue to play well defensively will be the key."

So is this a pivotal series? "It's important for us," Lucia said. "We have to start to take some steps. We have as a team, but we have to get some points. We put ourselves a little bit behind by what we did the first half of the year."

"I see some growth, right now. I really do. We are going to the net better. We are becoming a better offensive team creating opportunities. Early in the season we weren't creating a whole lot of opportunities.

"We are looking forward to the weekend against North Dakota, It's goign to be a great test for our team and we are looking forward to the challenege."

LUCIA QUOTES

* On line changes: We will probabl. set what our lines are going to be [Thursday]. For the most part they played pretty well last weekend and generated offense.

* On Jordan Schroder after World Juniors: "He came back understanding that he has to attack the net and play with speed, rather than getting to the offensive blue line and slowing the play down, looking for late guys. I thought he played well last weekend."

* North Dakota goalie Brad Eidsness has a 2.13 goals-against average, can the Gophers score on him: "They have a very good goaltender, their D-corps is big and strong, We need to continue. to generate chances and if you do that, eventually they will go in.

"You can generate chances and not score on a given night, that's hockey. I understand that. You look to overall development. We are doing a better job of protecting the puck, we are doing a better job of not turning it over in critical areas,

"But again we are going to play a team that plays at a higher tempo, that is going to force the issue a little bit more than what we have seen, We'll find out. This is a weekend we will have to play well in our defensive zone as well. There will be times when they bottle us up, but we have to make sure we keep them outside the dots.

"You don't get points for time of possession. We have to make sure we come back hard, we defend and take care of the puck."

* On keeping former Hill-Murray teammates Nick Larson and Mike Hoeffel together on same line this weekend: "They played well [in a 3-1 victory over Harvard on Saturday], I don't know if we want to touch that line based on the way they played. I am really happy with Nick. He seems like he has a lot of confidence right now. We want to keep that going."

* On injury situation with both teams: "They had some injuries, obviously losing [defenseman Chay] Genoway and they don't have [Brett] Hextall and [Corban] Knight is out for them. We don't have [Sam] Lofquist anymore and we don't have [Jay] Barriball and we don't have [Taylor] Matson, so we've both had some hits, So now depth becomes important."

* On how much crowd at Mariucci can help: "The crowd can always help, You know what it is like when you go up to North Dakota, The crowd is certainly into it and is charged. We will have a very good atmosphere, The students will be back. School starts ealry next week, All that will play into it. It should be a really fun weekend."