The Eastern hockey club will head back on the road this weekend, taking on Missouri State on Friday and Saturday in Springfield, Mo., at the Mediacom Ice Park. Friday’s game starts at 7 p.m., with Saturday’s game scheduled for a 5 p.m. start.

The Panthers are coming off a split weekend against the University of Louisville, which marked the team’s third straight weekend split. The team’s record now stands at 8-5-3.

The team’s leading scorer from last week, senior forward Tim Shannon, is coming off a weekend in which he scored his first career collegiate hat-trick.

Shannon called most of the goals “garbage goals,” but he said it still felt great to record the feat.

“None of the goals were anything special, they all were ‘garbage goals,’ but a goal is a goal,” he said. “Although it did feel good to get the hat trick, when it is all said and done we still lost the game, so it didn’t mean as much as it could have if we won it.”

Shannon and the Panthers lost their opening game to Louisville 5-4. Of the team’s losses, four have come by just a one goal difference.

After the Louisville series, Panthers’ senior forward Chris Gallagher said the team needed to improve on its power play and penalty kill.

“We will be working on the Power play and Penalty kill for sure,” he said. “That was something that wasn’t our strong suit of the weekend.”

Gallagher said the team did a better job in the second game of the Louisville series of staying out of the penalty box, which has been a struggle for the team all season.

“Our top power play line struggled getting anything set up,” he said. “The second game we did a better job of staying out of the box, so hopefully that continues into (this) weekend.”

Missouri State will likely be one of the toughest opponents the Panthers face this season, entering the game with a record of 13-3-2. The Bears are coming off a weekend sweep of University of Wisconsin-Platteville, and recently split a series with St. Louis University, who the Panthers were swept by back in September.

Missouri State sophomore forward Jack Ryan leads the team with 16 goals this season.

Following this weekend, the Panthers’ next game won’t be until Friday January 4 at the Chicagoland Winter Classic, hosted by Illinois State.

Dominic Renzetti can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].