Fife Flyers playcaller Todd Dutiaume believes it would be a huge boost to his men to move into eighth place in the Elite League.
That would put the ambitious Fifers firmly in line for an end-of-season play-off slot.
Fife have a chance to draw level on points with eighth-placed Cardiff Devils when they entertain Edinburgh Capitals at 7.15pm on Saturday.
Cardiff’s 1-0 defeat on Tuesday at Nottingham Panthers, who knocked Dundee Stars out of third place with the victory, leaves them on 45 points from 47 matches.
Their season has gone into freefall recently, with five straight defeats, and they don’t ice on Saturday.
Fired-up Flyers have two games in hand and are only two points adrift, and Dutiaume’s men are on a high after six straight wins that have catapulted them back into the play-off chase.
The experienced Canadian said: “Getting into the top eight would be great for everybody. It’s been a long time since we’ve been there and it would be well-deserved after the form we’ve shown recently.”
Capitals, already counted out of the play-offs, will be no pushovers as they proved by beating high-flying Braehead Clan 2-0 at Murrayfield on Sunday.
Dutiaume said: “Edinburgh have shown that they are a tough team and we can’t be looking further ahead than that game.”
In fact, Fife travel to Nottingham on Sunday (face-off 4pm), but Dutiaume said: “We’re taking one game at a time right now and we don’t worry about who our opponents are. We take care of ourselves and we are firmly focused on Saturday.”
Last Saturday’s 5-4 overtime defeat by newly-crowned Elite League champions Belfast Giants, with the winner coming from Jeff Szwez three seconds from the end of sudden-death overtime, ended Fife’s magnificent recent winning run.
Dutiaume said: “Belfast stepped it up a notch. They capitalised on our mistakes and that happens in hockey. We’ll have to learn from that, but not many teams will take a point from Belfast this season and we have to be positive about that.”