With the top spot in the OUA West all locked up, the Mustangs head into the final weekend of the regular season looking to improve their standing in the entire OUA with games against York (13-11-2) and Brock (13-10-3). Only three teams—McGill, Carleton, and UQTR—stand in the Mustangs' way of first in the OUA and the margin between fourth and first is slim at only three points.

With a four-point performance this weekend, Western can give themselves a good shot at earning home-ice advantage for the league's championship, the Queen's Cup, at the end of February. If they were to clinch first in the OUA it wouldn't be an unfamiliar position for the program, as the 2012-13 Mustangs also finished first in the OUA with 44 points under interim Head Coach Patrick Powers.

Coming into the New Year, the Mustangs sat in third-place in the OUA West with 20 points, two behind both Lakehead and Windsor. Since then, Western has been on fire, registering nine regulation wins in their last eleven games and taking home points in all of their past nine games (8-0-1) to put them six points clear of the next team in the West.

The OUA isn't the only group that Western has put on notice with their hot play of late; after falling off the CIS Top 10 in November the Mustangs have pushed their way back in to find themselves holding the eighth spot on this week's list. The only other OUA teams currently ranked ahead of them are McGill, Carleton, and UQTR, who have the same amount of points but hold more first-place votes.

With two games left, Daniel Erlich will be looking to add to his CIS-leading point total of 47 and close out the season on top of the country. Zach Harnden and Steve Reese will also be looking to stay hot, as they both made their mark on the scoresheet Saturday to extend their point streaks to 11 and nine games, respectively. Harnden has nine goals and 20 points during his streak while Reese has six goals and 18 points.

On defense, the Mustangs continue to have great success on their penalty kill, as their seven kills on seven tries Saturday night makes them 46-for-50 (92%) since the New Year. Josh Unice has been unstoppable as of late, winning 10 of his last 10 games while registering a save percentage of .951 and a goals against average of 1.60.

Western vs. York - Thursday, February 13 at 7 PM

For the York Lions, this upcoming weekend is by all accounts the most important of their 2013-14 season. After losing two in a row last weekend to Toronto and Western, York still sits on the inside of the playoff picture but are barely holding on as they find themselves one point above the OUA West cut-off line with two games left to play. Needless to say, the outcome of the Lions' next two games will have a massive impact on whether they will be packing it in or preparing for the playoffs next week. 

On Thursday, York will have a shot at redemption as they welcome the Mustangs to Toronto less than a week after falling in a tight-knit matchup at Thompson Arena by a score of 3-1. The Lions may have lost the last time around but their play had Mustangs head coach Clarke Singer impressed.

"York gave us some trouble today," Singer said after Saturday's game. "I think [they] gave us a little bit more pressure both on the fore-check and in zone then maybe we're used to … [and] …  I thought [they] did a nice job against us on face-offs so we're going to have to tidy up some of our d-zone faceoff plays."

As noted in the post-game report on Saturday, the Lions lived up to their special team reputation against Western, going 0-for-7 on the power play while killing off all seven of Western's own opportunities. York's power play sits second-last in the league at 12.1% while their penalty kill has been absolutely stellar for them this season, coming in at 87.5% percent to put them second overall in the OUA.

Western vs. Brock – Friday, February 15 at 7 PM  Watch live on Mustangs TV 

By the time Western welcomes the Brock Badgers to Thompson Arena on Saturday the Badgers will have already played Laurier on Thursday, meaning they will either have secured themselves a playoff position or be in full-on desperation mode for a win to close out the season. With 29 points, the Badgers currently sit in fifth but still aren't guaranteed a playoff spot, as ninth-place Waterloo is only two points back with two games left.

The last time that Brock and Western met in mid-January on the road the Mustangs came out on top by a score of 5-2. That game saw the Badgers go 1-for-4 on the power play, marking the first time in four games that the Mustangs allowed a power play goal and the last time they would for another three games.  

On offense, Brock is led by Matt Abercrombie (16G—14A—30P) and Thomas Stajan (9G—15A—24P), the cousin of Calgary Flames forward Matt Stajan. Abercrombie's 30 points places him in a tie for 18th on the OUA scoring leaderboard, seventeen places and seventeen points behind Western's top scorer in Erlich. In Brock's last game—a 6-3 win over Lakehead on Saturday, February 8—Abercrombie had a big night, registering a goal and two assists for three points.