The Kenai River Brown Bears were swept by the Fairbanks Ice Dogs on Friday and Saturday at the Big Dipper Ice Arena in Fairbanks.
The Bears have now lost four games in a row — two to the Anchorage Wolverines and two to the Ice Dogs.
“We can’t dwell on losing,” Kenai River head coach Taylor Shaw said. “We’ve gotta get out of it and find our own ways of getting out of it.
“We did a lot of positive things in the game tonight and we have to build off of that.”
The losing streak has been costly in the Club 49 Cup and in the Midwest Division standings.
The Wolverines lead the Club 49 Cup with 10 points, while the Ice Dogs have eight and the Brown Bears have three.
In the division, the Bears fell to seventh place at 10-14-2-0 for 22 points.
The Minnesota Wilderness lead the division with 34 points, while the Wisconsin Windigo have 28 and the Janesville (Wisconsin) Jets and Ice Dogs (11-10-1-3) have 26.
The Wolverines and Chippewa (Wisconsin) Steel have 24, while the Springfield (Illinois) Jr. Blues have 17.
The Bears host the Wolverines on Friday at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex at 7:30 p.m. That is Kenai River’s last home game until Jan. 19.
Saturday, the Ice Dogs and Brown Bears played a scoreless first period.
In the second period, both teams scored. Jake Cameron scored for Fairbanks, while Kotaro Tsutsumi, assisted by Nick Stevens and Andy Larson, scored for the Brown Bears.
The game stayed scoreless until 2:31 remained, when Carlson scored for the Ice Dogs.
“We made a mistake in the D zone and they capitalized,” Shaw said.
Carlson added another goal on an empty net with 1:20 left. With 35 seconds left, Landon MacDonald, assisted by Roope Tuomioksa, scored with an extra skater on the ice.
Kenai River was 0 for 2 on the power play, while Fairbanks was 0 for 6.
“We had to kill a bunch of penalties and it was still a 1-1 game with two and a half minutes left,” Shaw said.
Marks Slavinskis-Repe made 33 saves for the Bears, while Tyler Krivtsov stopped 34 for the Ice Dogs.
“We’ve just got to find a way to capitalize,” Shaw said. “I thought tonight and this weekend we did a better job of defending.
“Tonight, we got three or four breakaways and some two-on-ones, but we didn’t convert.”
Friday, Hayden Walters, assisted by Brock MacDonald and Blake Norris, scored just 1:36 into the game, but after that the Bears would never solve Krivtsov again.
Krivtsov had 32 saves, while Conor Sullivan stopped 25 for the Bears.
In the second period, Marc Lund scored on the power play for the Ice Dogs, then Carlson scored before the end of the period to give Fairbanks the lead.
In the third period, Lund made it 3-1 with 7:32 to play on another power-play goal. Kenai River finished o for 9 on the power play, while Fairbanks was 2 for 5.
“We had a goal waived off on one of them, and multiple looks,” Shaw said. “It wasn’t like our power play was bad.
“We had possession for most of the power plays. We just didn’t score.”
With the 14 power plays, Shaw said the game had no five-on-five flow.
“I thought it was unfortunate for the kids,” he said.
With 2:12 left, Nick Blood scored on empty-netter to ice the win.
