The Kenai River Brown Bears were swept on the road, losing to the Chippewa (Wisconsin) Steel 5-3 on Friday and 5-2 on Saturday in North American Hockey League play.
Kenai River has now lost 13 straight games and sits in last place in the Midwest Division at 12-26-3-0, good for 27 points. The Anchorage Wolverines and Minnesota Wilderness are tied for third place with 48 points, while Chippewa is still in the playoff hunt at 21-16-3-2 for 47 points.
The Brown Bears stay on the road to face the Wilderness on Friday and Saturday at 4:15 p.m. AKST.
In Friday’s game, Kenai River had the lead until getting outscored 3-0 in the third period.
In the first period, Kotaro Tsutsumi scored on assists from Blake Norris and Andy Larson, but Gavin Middendorf answered for Chippewa before the period was up.
In the second period, the Bears went up 3-1 on a pair of Larson goals — one a power-play strike assisted by Norris and Landon MacDonald, and the other assisted by Joseph Yoon.
The Steel then scored the final four goals of the game, starting with a goal from Joe Kelly late in the second period. Aidan Willis, Jacob Ligi and Talan Blanck scored in the third period.
Conor Sullivan had 39 saves for the Bears, while Ajay White stopped 24 for the Steel.
Saturday, the Steel took a 3-0 lead in the second period on goals from Peyton Platter, Ligi and Tomas Trunda.
By 15:11 left in the game, the Bears cut the lead to 3-2 on a Yoon goal with help from John Ross, and a Carter McCormick goal assisted by Tsutsumi and Larson.
Trunda then scored on the empty net with 53 seconds left, and Matt Grannan scored with 14 seconds left.
Marks Slavinskis-Repe stopped 28 for the Bears, while Carter Wishart made 29 saves for the Steel.
