newsminer.com

FAIRBANKS — The Alaska Nanooks are coming off of a two-win weekend in Big Rapids, Mich., and they’re two wins away from matching all of their wins last season.

However, this weekend at the Carlson Center, the squad with a 7-4-1 overall record is facing a Central Collegiate Hockey Association opponent that knows about taking two wins from the Nanooks. Alaska ended its 2007-08 regular season by respectively falling 2-1 in overtime and 5-3 to the Lake Superior State Lakers last Feb. 22-23 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.

Lake Superior leads the all-time series at 23-10-4, but it’s 0-2-4 in its last six contests in Fairbanks, where it hasn’t won since December 2000.

Alaska head coach Dallas Ferguson has warned his players that the eighth-place Lakers want to end their drought on the fourth-place Nanooks’ home sheet in games at 7:35 p.m. on Friday and Saturday at the Carlson Center.

“They’re very well-coached, they play a competitive game and they take care of the play away from the puck,” Ferguson said. “We’re going to have to earn everything we get. We can’t just expect that because we got four points last weekend, we’re going to come in here and get four points again.”

The Nanooks earned their first CCHA sweep of the season with Friday’s 3-2 victory and Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Ferris State Bulldogs. Alaska improved to 5-3-0 in CCHA play to share fourth place with the Bulldogs, Michigan Wolverines and Ohio State Buckeyes.

The sweep also led to weekly CCHA honors for Alaska. Senior Chad Johnson received the Goaltender of the Week recognition after stopping 69 of 71 shots for the weekend and recording his third career shutout Saturday. Freshman right wing Justin Brossman collected the Rookie of the Week accolade after scoring Saturday’s game-winning goal and assisting Friday on center Adam Naglich’s game-winner.

Despite the sweep and the honors, Ferguson had to bring the Nanooks back to Earth during this week’s practices.

“I’m a big believer in that you don’t let your highs get too high and your lows get too low” the first-year head coach said. “You’ve got to keep it in perspective, and we’ve still got six games before the break. Every weekend is a tough weekend in this conference.”

The Lakers, 4-5-3 overall and 3-3-2-1 CCHA, went out of conference last weekend, earning a split against Robert Morris in the Clarence “Taffy” Abel Arena in Sault Ste. Marie.

Lake Superior won 3-1 Friday, led by a goal and an assist from senior right wing Josh Sim and two assists from junior defenseman Steven Kaunisto. The Lakers lost 4-3 Saturday after the Colonials of College Hockey America scored the game-winner on a 3-on-2 rush with 28 seconds left in the game. Twenty-eight seconds earlier, Lakers right wing Nathan Perkovich tied the game at 3.

Lake Superior head coach Jim Roque said Robert Morris played great in both games and he didn’t think his team “played especially great last weekend.”

“I thought we were a little careless with the puck,” Roque said Tuesday from Sault Ste. Marie. “We had chances in both games to put them down. In the first periods of both nights, we could have been up two to three goals, and on the second night, we hit a couple of posts. I think our guys didn’t respect Roberrt Morris.”

He expects his team to have a different approach toward the Nanooks, who lead the CCHA and rank fourth in NCAA Division I for defense after allowing 17 goals in 12 games for an average of 1.42.

“Based on how things have been going for them, we’re hoping to score some goals against Alaska,” Roque said. “We’ve got to find ways to beat Chad Johnson, and find ways to get the puck to the net and get rebounds.”

Junior center Dion Knelsen, who had an assist Friday against Ferris State, leads the Nanooks with team highs of five goals and 10 points, and junior right wing Zac McVoy is the Lakers’ leading goal scorer (six) and points producer (12).

BLADE BITS: Minnesota, coached by former Nanooks head coach Don Lucia (1987-93), is a unanimous No. 1 this week in both national polls — USCHO.com/CBS College Sports Division and USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine — and the Inside College Hockey Power Rankings. Princeton, guided by Guy Gadowsky, who coached Alaska from 1999-2004, is fifth in the INCH Rankings and seventh in both polls.

Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.