Ryan Fung/Collegian

It’s hard to go into a game and not consider it important, but for the Massachusetts hockey team this weekend is the biggest of their season thus far.

Friday night will be the first of the last four games the Minutemen will play before the Hockey East playoffs. UMass will play a home-and-home series against No. 1 Boston University starting Friday at 7:30 p.m. at the Mullins Center and again Saturday night at Agganis Arena at 8 p.m.

The Minutemen (14-15-3, 9-11-3 Hockey East) are coming off a three-game winning streak, but that doesn’t compare to the 12-game streak Boston University (23-5-4, 14-5-4 Hockey East) is currently on ‘- the longest in college hockey.

‘ ‘Under normal conditions it certainly gives us some confidence,’ UMass coach Don Cahoon said. ‘But they have a 12-game win streak, so it puts it all into perspective.’

Boston University brings to the ice six solid defensemen in Matt Gilroy, Colby Cohen, Brian Strait, David Warsofsky, Kevin Shattenkirk and Eric Gryba.

‘ ‘They’ve got the best core of defensemen in the country. Five out of the six guys they put on the ice are NHL draft picks ‘- a couple of them first round draft picks,’ Cahoon said. ‘The sixth guy is the number one free agent in college hockey.’

Not only do the Terriers present the top defense in college hockey, they have the top scorer in Hockey East with Colin Wilson, 14 goals and 27 assists. But, the other members of their attack also produce a fair number of points. Nine players on the team have 21 plus points, including three defenders ‘- Gilroy, Shattenkirk and Cohen.

Boston University leads Hockey East in scoring and defending. The Terriers average 3.72 goals per game, while only allowing 1.94 against. They have one of the top power-play units in the nation, going 43-for-187 or 23 percent. Their penalty kill is above average, killing off 88.6 percent of their penalties even though they lead Hockey East in penalty minutes.

‘ ‘They’ve got physicality, they’ve got speed and they’ve solved their goaltending dilemma by getting one of the top rookie performers in the country, Kieran Millan, to play at a very high level,’ Cahoon said.

Millan has played in 23 of BU’s 32 games allowing 38 goals. He has a .930 save percentage and averages 1.02 goals per game.

Not only does BU have the makings of the No. 1 team in college hockey, the Terriers have proved they are by sitting atop the rankings for the last four straight weeks and 15 of the last 20 weeks. They were also ranked No. 1 in the early months of the season.

The last time the Minutemen played BU was Nov. 14 at the Mullins Center. UMass defeated then-No. 1 Boston University, 5-1.

‘ ‘What we’ll look at is the matchup piece ‘- how did we have success that night? Why did we have success that night?’ Cahoon said. ‘My suspicion is that we played pretty well and I think that will show itself and I think that my suspicion is they were not anticipating that we can skate the way we skate. So they’ll play a better game, so we need to step up and push back.’

This weekend will be nothing short of a difficult matchup for the Minutemen, but as of late they have shown their ability to perform against high-caliber teams (4-1 win over then-No. 2 Northeastern on Feb. 14).

‘ ‘We just have to get ourselves prepared to compete and bring our best game to the rink. If we bring our best game we have a legitimate good shot at having success,’ Cahoon said. ‘But anything less than a very good game is not going to get it done against this team.’

Melissa Turtinen can be reached at mturtinen@dailycollegian.com.