VANCOUVER – Having long ago wrapped up a Canada West playoff berth, the UBC Thunderbirds host the Trinity Western Spartans for their penultimate game of the regular season Friday, February 11 at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre, a game with major consequences when it comes to postseason seeding.

Entering this weekend tied with the Mount Royal Cougars for second in the conference, the T-Birds (12-5-1) are still in the hunt for one of two first round playoff byes, needing to finish with one more win than MRU in their respective final two games, the last of which UBC will play on February 19 following a recent schedule change.

"From a coaching perspective, finishing the year with two very, very meaningful games is just great for the group, great for prep, great for practice habits and going into playoffs it's going to be really good for us," said UBC Head Coach Sven Butenschon coming off a pair of losses at Mount Royal last weekend. "It hasn't developed the way we were hoping, but looking at the positives, getting a chance to play meaningful games going into the playoffs is pretty good."

It hasn't been a great stretch for the 'Birds who have dropped four of their last five games. As a result, even with a pair of wins against TWU (2-16) to close out the season, UBC needs Calgary to either split their weekend series with MRU, or win both in order for the T-Birds to finish second in the conference and get a bye through to the semifinals.

While the scenario is not entirely in UBC's control, the T-Birds know they need to only focus on facing the Spartans, a team which would surely enjoy playing the role of spoiler.

UBC has won all four previous regular season meetings with the Spartans with shutout wins in each of the last three.

"They've been playing way better, they've adjusted and made some changes," said Butenschon of TWU's play of late. "They are right there and competing so I'm sure there's a lot of pride on that side, they haven't beat us yet this year so we're going to be looking at a real motivated group."

Aside from contending with a motivated Spartans squad, the T-Birds will also be focussing heavily on improved play in their defensive zone after allowing 26 goals against in their last five games.

"Since Christmas we haven't been able to find a groove and find rhythm, it's been up and down. Pretty challenging as a coaching staff on what to focus on and what to fix when there's a little bit of everything, but the positive is that third period in Mount Royal was our best period of the year, so we'll try to take those lessons and that vibe and build off of that."

If the T-Birds' previous meetings with Trinity Western are any indication, these final two games will be a perfect playoff tune-up with plenty of physicality. Aside from the need to put up a win Friday night, UBC will also be looking to return to what's given them success, and that's a commitment to grinding out a 60 minute effort, the kind of mentality they'll need come the postseason.

"I think we like that, those are the games that really get your juices flowing. We got to get comfortable with that, we won a game like that in Regina, we won a game like that against Calgary recently, I think that's going to have to be our identity moving forward. As much as we want to score a ton of goals we haven't really seen it so we have to win other ways."

Puck drop Friday is 7:00 p.m. PT at the Doug Mitchell Thunderbird Sports Centre. Tickets are free but must be reserved in advance. The game will also be streamed live on Canada West TV.