newsminer.com

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Michigan State University’s three national championship banners — 1966, 1986 and 2007 — hang above the neutral zone in the Munn Ice Arena.

It’s the same neutral zone that helped the 18th-ranked Alaska Nanooks take a 3-1 victory Saturday night for a split of the Central Collegiate Hockey Association series.

After Saturday morning’s practice, the third-place Nanooks (8-5-3-2 CCHA, 10-6-4 overall) did a video review of Friday’s 2-1 loss and noticed that the ninth-place Spartans (3-9-2-2, 6-13-3) often flowed through the neutral zone, aided by effective cross-ice passing and skating.

The Nanooks made adjustments defensively to disrupt the Spartans’ flow in the neutral zone Saturday night.

“We just made sure we clogged it up a bit, that we had one guy coming back strong through the middle and that we were getting our sticks down and picking off passes,” said sophomore center Derek Klassen, who also scored two goals. “If they can’t go across the ice, they’d have to dump it in our end.

“It’s a good thing that we picked up from last night and that we did a lot better tonight,” he added.

The improved play in the neutral zone benefitted the Nanooks offensively.

Alaska head coach Dallas Ferguson said the Nanooks were a little slow through the neutral zone on Friday night.

“I think at times tonight (Saturday), we were getting pucks deep consistently,” Ferguson said. “I think that we were able to get in on the forecheck and sometimes create a turnover and get something going in the O-zone.”

Familarity breeds success

Scott Greenham had his first CCHA start Saturday in the Munn Arena, but the Alaska freshman goaltender is no stranger to Michigan State.

Greenham said that while he was growing up in Addison, Ontario, he followed some of the more well-known NCAA programs, including Michigan State, and he watched college games in the Great Lakes State.

“I went to a couple of games that were close to my house, which is about 45 minutes from the (Michigan-Canada) border,” Greenham said after his 31-save performance in Saturday’s win.

Greenham said it meant a lot to him to get a win in his first CCHA start and in the Munn Arena, where the Nanooks have a 5-23-0 record. Alaska is 11-37-1 all-time against Michigan State.

Before Saturday, the Nanooks last won against the Spartans on March 10, 2006 with a 2-1 decision in the first game of a best-of-three quarterfinal final series in the Munn Arena.

“In any game, it means a lot to get the win,” Greenham said.

“In the situation I’m in, I have to take all the chances I can get. I try to perform to my best, having my first CCHA start in a building like this, against a team like this that I had known about and admired as a kid,” he added. “But as soon as I got here, I saw them as no different than anyone else.”

Before Saturday, Greenham hadn’t played in more than two months. He backstopped respective 5-0 wins over Connecticut on Oct. 11 in the Kendall Hockey Classic in Anchorage and over Mercyhurst on Oct. 17 in the Brice Alaska Goal Rush at the Carlson Center.

It’s likely that Greenham will inherit the starting role next season. Ferguson wanted to make sure that he did get time between the pipes in the second half of this season, in which the Nanooks have 12 more CCHA games, including Friday and Saturday’s matchup in Indiana against No. 1-ranked and league-leading Notre Dame.

“Chad had played every CCHA game up until tonight,” Ferguson said. “We feel very comfortable with Scott Greenham and when you have a goaltender like Chad Johnson playing the way he is you don’t want to disrupt his routine.

“... Scott and Chad have a great relationship as far as working together, and Chad has done a great job of kind of mentoring him through his experience so far.”

Greenham, the first Nanooks goaltender to win his first three starts, has a 0.33 goals against average and .986 saves percentage this season.

Blade bits

• The Daily News-Miner is publishing a box after each conference game to gauge the progress of this season’s Nanooks compared to 2001-02 and 2003-04, the only winning seasons in CCHA play for Alaska since it joined the league in 1995. The 2001-02 Nanooks placed fourth at 15-10-3, and the 2003-04 team registered a sixth-place mark of 14-13-1.

• Junior right wing Brandon Knelsen and freshman center Carlo Finucci returned to action Saturday after sitting out Friday’s game to recover from a stomach virus that struck the team early last week. Knelsen’s brother, Dion, a junior center, turned 20 on Saturday.

• No. 1-ranked and CCHA-leading Notre Dame, which Alaska visits Friday and Saturday in Indiana, is on a nation-best 16-game unbeaten streak (14-0-2) after capturing the title in the Shillelagh Tournament in Hoffman Estates, Ill., last weekend.

The Fighting Irish, 16-3-2 overall and 10-2-2-2 CCHA, posted respective 3-1 wins over Union (N.Y.) on Friday and Minnesota-Duluth on Saturday. Senior goaltender and South Anchorage High School graduate Jordan Pearce registered 39 saves in the tournament and senior left wing Erik Condra led Notre Dame with three points, all from assists.

• Johnson and Pearce are close for saves percentage and goals against average in the CCHA for overall games.

Johnson ranks first with a .940 saves percentage and 1.62 GAA, while Pearce is second with respective statistics of .935 and 1.63. Johnson’s saves percentage also ranks third nationally and his GAA is sixth, while Pearce has the nation’s seventh-best saves percentage and No. 8 GAA.

In conference play, Miami (Ohio) freshman Cody Reichard, a former Fairbanks Ice Dog, leads the CCHA with 1.40 GAA and .945 saves percentage.

Johnson sports the second-best GAA (1.58) and saves percentage (.944) in league play, and Pearce has a GAA of 1.68 in CCHA action that ranks fourth and a fifth-place saves percentage of .934. Nebraska-Omaha senior and former Ice Dog Jerad Kaufmann has the fourth-best saves percentage (.935) in conference games.

• The Nanooks are staying and practicing today through Wednesday in Grand Rapids, Mich., located about 60 miles west of East Lansing. They’re scheduled to attend Wednesday night’s American Hockey League game between the Grand Rapids Griffins and the Rockford Ice Hogs, who include former Alaska defenseman Jordan Hendry. The Ice Hogs of Illinois are are the top minor-league affiliate of the Chicago Blackhawks and the Griffins are likewise for the defending Stanley Cup champion Detroit Red Wings.