Had Alaska been able to carry over its efforts from the opening 20 minutes into the rest of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association series finale, it might have avoided getting swept at home for the first time in more than three years.
Alaska fell 3-2 after seizing a 1-0 lead and outshooting the visitors from Big Rapids, Mich., 13-2 in the first period and rallying to a 2-2 tie in the second period. The sixth-place Nanooks (9-11-4-2 CCHA, 12-12-4 overall) were coming off a 2-1 loss Saturday.
The last time the Nanooks were swept at the Carlson Center was on Jan. 25-26, 2008 against Miami (Ohio) by respective scores of 2-0 and 7-2.
It had been much longer since the Bulldogs swept the Nanooks on the Carlson’s Olympic-size sheet — Nov. 1-2, 2002 by outcomes of 5-0 and 5-1, respectively.
“It feels really good for us to do it here,” Ferris State head coach Bob Daniels said. “We’ve lost a lot of heartbreakers (to Alaska). So it feels really good on a night that I thought the better team was UAF. Sometimes it’s just your turn to win.”
Daniels, despite an outcome that improved his team’s fifth-place mark to 11-10-3-2 CCHA and 14-12-4 overall, thought the Nanooks’ hockey team was better in Sunday’s only men’s college hockey game.
The game was originally set for Friday but was postponed because Ferris State’s flight last Wednesday from Grand Rapids, Mich., was cancelled by a snowstorm.
The Nanooks, with goals from freshman center Cody Kunyk and senior right wing Dustin Sather and 20 saves from junior goaltender Scott Greenham, finished Sunday with a 31-23 shots advantage and 67 total attempts to the Bulldogs’ 45.
“I thought they had better scoring chances than we did and I thought they played with more energy,” said Daniels, who got the game-winning goal from senior left wing Mike Fillinger and 29 saves from senior goaltender Pat Nagle. “Their line rushes had more purpose and speed and I thought territorially, they kind of controlled play and they seemed to be in our end ... definitely in the first and third periods.
Alaska head coach Dallas Ferguson agreed with his Ferris State counterpart about the first period.
“I thought the first period had some pace to it,” Ferguson said.
“I thought we were moving the puck well, we were getting up the ice and attacking well,” Ferguson said during the postgame media conference in the Pioneer Room,
The second period, as Ferguson stated, was “a little bit messy” for Alaska.
Alaska rallied to even the score at 2, but along the way, it lost sophomore right wing and key penalty killer Andy Taranto to a game misconduct, and gave up a pair of 4-on-4 goals to Bulldogs right wing Eric Alexander and defenseman Scott Wietecha in a 49-second span.
Taranto was ejected at 6:34 after collecting a five-minute major and game misconduct for a checking-from-behind infraction to Wysopal near the left corner in the Nanooks zone.
It seemed like the Nanooks were receiving a break after Ferris State left wing Mike Embach picked up a cross-checking minor at 6:41. Alaska, instead, fell behind 2-1 in a 49-second span.
Bulldogs right wing Eric Alexander snapped a shot from the right circle over Greenham’s glove at 7:14 and defenseman teammate Scott Wietecha’s shot from the slot went in off of the crossbar at 8:03.
Sather knotted the score at 13:03, surprising Nagle at the left post with Jarret Granberg’s backhand pass on a 2-on-1. Granberg, a sophomore center, scored Alaska’s lone goal Saturday during an extra-attacker situation with 33 seconds left in the game.
Fillinger took advantage of a turnover at 7:55 of the third to snap the tie and set up the sweep.
Nanooks defenseman Kaare Odegaard tried to clear the puck from the right corner but the Bulldogs senior picked it off on the boards. Fillinger skated to the right circle to feed to Alexander, whose shot from the left side of the crease was stopped by Greenham’s stick-side pad. Fillinger gained the rebound and put the puck in off of the same pad.
Kunyk, with his team-high 10th goal from Joe Sova’s team-high 16th assist, collected his own rebound and slipped it by Nagle’s stick side at 12:45 of the first peirod for Alaska’s 1-0 lead.
Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.
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