It’s never easy in the North American Hockey League, but the Fairbanks Ice Dogs got the sweep they needed over the Kenai River Brown Bears with a 6-3 victory Saturday at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex.
“It’s a heck of a league,” Fairbanks coach Dave Allison said. “Every night and every shift you’ve gotta come and you’ve gotta find a purpose.”
The Ice Dogs improved to 36-19-1-2 with the victory, moving four points ahead of the Springfield (Illinois) Jr. Blues for first in the Midwest Division.
Fairbanks has just two games left in the regular season, at home against the Anchorage Wolverines, while Springfield has four games remaining.
The Ice Dogs also now lead the Club 49 Cup 31-30, with the Bears trailing with 11 points. The Club 49 Cup is the seasonlong battle between the Ice Dogs, Wolverines and Brown Bears.
“Alaska is a great hockey state and if you can win that, you’ve got that in your back pocket,” Allison said.
Kenai River is 13-40-3-2 and in last in the division after losing an eighth straight game. The Bears finish their season by hosting the Minnesota Magicians on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. at the sports complex.
Despite the final score and the marked difference in the standings, Saturday’s game showed how thin the margins are in the NAHL.
“I don’t think we were in control as much as the score might indicate,” Allison said. “Kenai plays hard. They come after it and they compete.”
The Ice Dogs had to come back from one-goal deficits three times.
In the first period, Carson Triggs, assisted by Max Marquette and Kenai’s Parker Lockwood, scored, but Braden Lindstrom had things even for the Ice Dogs by the end of the first period.
Just 24 seconds into the second period, Triggs scored again with Lockwood and Marquette assists, but Jack Hale had the game all square four minutes later.
Triggs, who is tendered by the Brown Bears for next season, got his first two NAHL goals in his sixth game with the club this season. Carson is the younger brother of Bears forward Caden Triggs.
“I think he’s certainly starting to come into his own and figure it out,” Kenai River interim head coach Taylor Shaw said of Carson. “Obviously, he has his big brother here to kind of lean on a little bit with how the game works up here.
“He’s put himself in spots and he finished tonight.”
Just 28 seconds after Hale’s goal made it 2-2, Nick Ostbloom, assisted by Ryan Finch and Barak Braslavski, made it 3-2 in favor of the Bears. A little over a minute later, Maksis Brimanis had it back to even for Fairbanks.
The Ice Dogs then took the lead for good with a power-play goal by Tristan Sarsland with 4:15 left in the second.
“I actually thought we played pretty well defensively,” Shaw said. “We had a lot of scoring chances tonight. The 10 minutes there in the back part of the second period weren’t our best.”
Shaw was happy with how the team came out in the third period. When the Bears created good chances, they either missed the net or ran into the steady goaltending of Kayden Hargraves, who made 24 saves.
“Hargraves, this weekend, you can’t say enough about him because he’s a lighthouse back there,” Allison said. “He gives us a chance to win. And sometimes we rely on him a little too much, but it’s good to know that we can.”
With 3:38 to play, Kevin Marx Noren put the Ice Dogs up 5-3. Kenai River then pulled the goalie and had a few minutes of chances before Jack Ring had an empty-netter with 1:02 to play.
Levi Gho made 28 saves for the Bears. Especially with the scoring issues the Bears have been having, Shaw said the goaltending needs to improve.
“We need to be able to win 3-1 and 3-2 games right now,” Shaw said. “We let some goals in tonight that quite frankly shouldn’t have gone in.”
Saturday
Ice Dogs 6, Brown Bears 3
Fairbanks 1 3 2 —6
Kenai River 1 2 0 —3
First period — 1. Kenai River, Car. Triggs (Marquette, Lockwood), 8:32; 2. Fairbanks, Lindstrom (Shasby, Cunningham), 11:56. Penalties — Fairbanks 1 for 2:00.
Second period — 3. Kenai River, Car. Triggs (Lockwood, Marquette), 0:24; 4. Fairbanks, Hale (Stewart, Ring), 4:24; 5. Kenai River, Ostbloom (Finch, Braslavski), 5:02; 6. Fairbanks, Brimanis (Dvorak, Conrad), 6:08; 7. Fairbanks, Sarsland (Malinowski, Conrad), pp, 15:45. Penalties — Kenai River 2 for 4:00.
Third period — 8. Fairbanks, Marx Noren (Sarsland, Welsch), 16:22; 9. Fairbanks, Ring (Renfrew, Hale), 18:58. Penalties — Fairbanks 1 for 2:00.
Shots on goal — Fairbanks 8-17-9—34; Kenai River 9-9-9—27.
Goalies — Fairbanks, Hargraves (27 shots, 24 saves); Kenai River, Gho (33 shots, 28 saves).
Carson Triggs of the Kenai River Brown Bears shoots just wide on Fairbanks Ice Dogs goalie Kayden Hargraves on Saturday, April 2, 2022, at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex in Soldotna, Alaska. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
