The No. 7 Badger men's hockey team will kick-off Big Ten play on the road this weekend in Happy Valley against the No. 12 Penn State Nittany Lions.

Here are six quick facts to know before tuning in:

1.  B1G TIME COMPETITION: This weekend will be the opening series of Big Ten play throughout the conference and the opponent for Wisconsin is fitting. The Badgers' 2018-19 season ended at the hand of Penn State in a two-games-to-one series at PSU in last year's Big Ten tournament. Sweeping the Big Ten preseason-favorite Nittany Lions on the road would be a huge first Big Ten series for Wisconsin to start the season.

2. FRESHMAN PHENOMS: The Badger freshman class continues to lead the way for this season's success. Freshman Cole Caufield leads the county with seven goals and his fellow freshman Owen Lindmark tapped in the game-winning goal for his second game-winner of the season last Saturday versus Clarkson. Alex Turcotte and Dylan Holloway, also members of the class of 2023, have both been huge contributions to the team. Turcotte has eight points despite missing last weekend and Holloway has notched one goal and two assists of his own.

3. FAMILIAR ICE: As Wisconsin played Penn State seven times last season, including three times in the Big Ten tournament, the last five of those games were played on Penn State's home ice. Wisconsin players are familiar with Happy Valley and the hockey environment it supplies and will try to use this familiarity to their advantage this weekend.

4. B1G SCORING: Offense has been one of the Badger's strong suits this season and offense should be on full display in University Park this weekend. In all of the last 10 meetings between the Badgers and the Nittany Lions, each team has scored two or more goal and each team has scored as many as eight. Wisconsin's sophomore goalie Daniel Lebedeff, who notched a combined 51 saves versus Clarkson, will look to hold off Penn State's offensive strikes while his offense puts pressure on the Nittany Lion defense.

5. SCOUTING PENN STATE: Penn State is currently 4-1-0 overall this season with their only loss coming against the University of Alaska. The Nittany Lions finished third in the Big Ten last year behind Notre Dame and Minnesota. All five games for PSU so far have come at home and the Nittany Lions will play their first nine games of the season at Pegula Ice Arena on campus. Wisconsin's season-opening road trip could prove beneficial to the Badgers heading into Happy Valley.

The Nittany Lions are led this year in scoring by senior Nate Sucese. Sucese has notched nine assists and 11 points to pace the Big Ten. Fellow senior Brandon Brio has a team high four goals on the year. Penn State boasts an experienced scoring core with six out of their seven top scorers being upperclassmen. In goal for Penn State has been senior Peyton Jones. Jones has given up an average 2.2 goals per game this season, but Wisconsin will look to raise that average by the end of the weekend.

6. HOW TO WATCH: Wisconsin will play Penn State Thursday and Friday in University Park with Thursday's game starting at 6 p.m. and Friday's starting at 5 p.m. Both games against Penn State can be seen on BTN or heard on WIBA 1310. As always, live stats can be found at uwbadgers.com and live updates to follow the game can be seen by following @BadgerMHockey of Twitter.