newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — Ice Dogs head coach Josh Hauge predicted it would take 15 games to find out just what his junior hockey team was made of.

Sixteen games into the season, he’s liking the answers.

Coming off a six-goal win over the Wenatchee Wild, Fairbanks holds a four-point lead for first place in the North American Hockey League’s West division.

“From day one, I’ve said we’re not gonna be a club that comes out in the first 15, but in the second 15 I expect us to be pretty good,” Hauge said. “Our 16th game was a 9-3 win, so hopefully my prediction was right and we can keep going that way.”

The Ice Dogs (9-4-3) will defend their top division spot against the Kenai River Brown Bears (8-10-1) tonight and Saturday night at the Big Dipper Ice Arena. Both games are at 7:30 p.m.

If the Ice Dogs were holding back anything in those first 15 games, it wasn’t their offense, which is second in the league with 3.9 goals per game.

That offensive success has given Fairbanks the look of a finesse team. Defenseman Drew Darwitz wants to change that.

“We’re not right now, but we’re gonna be the most physical team (in the West),” Darwitz said. “Last week, we showed Wenatchee that we can obviously outplay them. Kenai doesn’t like when they get hit; they’re small. They don’t like to get hit.

“Overall, I think we’ll probably be the most physical big guns in the division.”

Hauge cautioned about overlooking the Brown Bears for their size.

“They’ve played pretty physical for a smaller club,” Hauge said. “I think they outhit us the two games where they beat us.”

Darwitz leads NAHL defensemen in points with 14, while his plus-minus rating of +10 is tops in the Ice Dogs lockerroom and tied for 15th in the league.

“He pounds everything down, and he’s really good at setting people up and making plays,” Hauge said. “He quarterbacks our power play, and everything goes through our power play.”

That’s a high compliment, seeing as Fairbanks ranks second in the NAHL with a power play percentage of 18.35 (behind the Alexandria Blizzard’s 20.47).

Darwitz said his numbers were a reflection of his teammates’ success as much as his own.

“I got great forwards burying the puck and the power play’s great,” Darwitz said. “That’s pretty much it right there. Good players around you get you points.”

One of the players getting him plenty of points is forward Austin Block. Block’s 23 points are tied for fifth in the NAHL. His nine goals are tied for 10th in the league, and he joins Darwitz as a team leader in assists with 14.

The one thing Darwitz lacks? Not one of his 29 shots has found the back of the net.

“He keeps doing the right thing, putting the puck where it should be, and one’s gonna go in for him here,” Hauge said. “If he doesn’t score a goal for us all season, I’m OK with that, as long as he continues to do what he’s been doing.”

Statistically, the Ice Dogs have a major edge over Kenai River in plus-minus. The Brown Bears have just one player with a positive plus-minus — defenseman Andren Sustr is +1 in four games played.

Hauge thinks that’s linked to Kenai River’s “high-risk, high-reward” style that has put the Brown Bears last in the league with 86 goals allowed.

“They take chances,” he said. “They’re very offensive-minded. We need to focus on defense and let the chances come to us this weekend.”

That style will be a good measuring stick for another of Fairbanks’ early-season worries — its conditioning. Fairbanks will have to play the fast-skating Brown Bears five times in a row, twice this weekend at the Big Dipper and three times Nov. 27-29 in Soldotna.