“I feel it’s a great accomplishment to come into the tournament as the NO. 1 seed, but every team going into their first game of the tournament has a clean slate,” Shattuck coach Murray Eaves said. “Every team has the pressure on.”

The team also is hosting, meaning they’ll be sleeping in their own beds, and were the only team that didn’t have a seven-plus hour car ride.

“We still have to play the games,” Eaves said. “The team that generates momentum and plays with confidence will be hard to beat.”

The Sabres (14-1-5) won three of four games against the Eagles this year, including a sweep of a two-game series at Shattuck last weekend.

The Eagles (4-13-3) are coming into the weekend losers of five straight and playing with an ever-shortening bench from a slew of injuries.

“It has taken its toll on our guys,” coach Dan Giachino said. “Trying to play each game with 11 or 12 skaters is tough when you have guys like Alex Roy and Jordan Peters out of the line up.

“They have been two of our top scorers this year.”

The Eagles will get Max Friedrich back, but veteran forward Ryan Faria will miss the weekend. Still, Giachino has high hopes for a good performance.

“We’ve really concentrated on our systems this past week,” he said. “We need to stay disciplined in our systems to be effective and keep up with the top teams.”

The Capital Centre Pride (15-4-1) and Soo Indians (5-9-6) will compete in the second game of the night.

The Pride swept the Indians this season, but in early January when the teams met they played two one-goal games, and the Indians are 2-2-2 since that weekend series.

Thunder Bay (7-10-3) and Marquette (6-14-0) will play the nightcap tonight, dropping the puck at 7:30.

Marquette won the NLHL In 2008-2009, but struggled out of the gate this year before finishing the season on a four-game winning streak.

None of their six wins were against the Kings though, as Thunder Bay swept the season series 4-0.

“My team had a good regular season, but could have picked up a few more wins if we would have played a little bit harder,” Thunder Bay coach Steve Bailot said. “We definitely have improved since the start of the year, which I think will help us for the weekend.

“There are six good teams here, so we will have to play smart and hard for 54 minutes in order to be successful.”

On Saturday the games will start at 10 a.m., with the Shattuck and Marquette game available via web cast starting at 11 a.m.

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