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Photo by John Wagner

Photo by John Wagner

FAIRBANKS — Fairbanks Ice Dogs forward Jon Waggoner stood in front of the Wenatchee Wild crease with a grin breaking through his scruffy beard. He chuckled.

And why not? This once-close game had become a laugher.

Fairbanks scored five goals in the second period en route to a 9-3 North American Hockey League win over the Wenatchee Wild on Saturday night at the Big Dipper Ice Arena.

Ice Dogs forward Michael Juola’s goal 4:39 into the second stanza broke a 1-1 tie and began a three-minute, four-goal barrage by Fairbanks.

“I don’t think we took our foot off the pedal after that,” said Brad McCabe, who scored two of those four goals.

The teams had looked evenly matched in the first period, but 20 minutes later, they were miles apart.

Six Ice Dogs scored and three — McCabe, Eric Kraft and Jared Larson — had two goals as Fairbanks managed to net the puck in a litany of ways.

Crisp side-to-side passes led to wide-open opportunities for Jared Larson, James Saintey and McCabe.

McCabe said they had noticed Wenatchee was slow to react to horizontal passing early in the game and knew they had the puckhandling abilities to take advantage.

Some scores came from simply putting the puck into play near the net, such as Juola’s goal in the second. He flipped the puck from beside the right post into two Wild defenders, who inadvertently deflected it back into the net.

McCabe might have gotten the best break of the night. A shot flicked off Wenatchee goalie Mac Carruth’s helmet, banked off the glass behind the net and landed in front of McCabe near the crease, where he easily knocked it in.

“It was definitely an early Christmas gift,” McCabe said. “I’ve been getting lucky like that.”

McCabe has been blessed with luck and skill since donning an Ice Dogs jersey; he has scored nine goals in his eight games with the team.

Friday night saw the sudden eruption of an offense Fairbanks coach Josh Hauge had promised Ice Dogs fans since practices began.

Along with better horizontal passing down low, the Ice Dogs improved by being more willing to take hits near the Wild net, Hauge said.

“We’re trying not to be fancy with it anymore,” Waggoner said. “We’re just getting down there and getting the puck in however we can.”

There was still room for the fancy stuff, though.

Steve Zierke beat a defender down the left board and put a spectacular move on Carruth, who was caught guarding the left post as Zierke leapt by and shot into an open net with 2:47 remaining in the third period.

Larson also didn’t need any grit to fire a shot from the right circle through Wenatchee goalie Mathieu Douglas’ five-hole with five minutes left in the third.

Waggoner agreed with Hauge that it was time for Fairbanks’ goal-scoring to bloom.

“We’ve been talking about how great our offense was,” he said, “but we hadn’t produced enough to back it up.”

Until Saturday night.

“I didn’t expect it to happen that quick,” Hauge said. “... It was a pretty great experience.”

Fairbanks goalie Phil Cook had 28 saves as he improved his record to 9-3-2. The West Division first-place Ice Dogs are now 9-4-3 while last-place Wenatchee dropped to 4-7-1.

Carruth (1-3-0) took the loss, making 15 saves and allowing five goals. Douglas replaced him with 12:20 remaining in the second period, allowing four goals and making 16 saves.

Ice Dogs forward Austin Block had three assists to increase his team-leading point total to 23. Waggoner also had three helpers, while Andrew McCabe, Drew Darwitz, Joseph Krause and Zierke each had two.

Contact staff writer Joshua Armstrong at 459-7583.