The Ice Dogs are set to host the Anchorage Wolverines in their opening battles of Alaska Airlines Club 49 Cup play. The series pits two rivals against each other in a pair of contests between two high-performing squads.
“For us, it’s more about building off what we’ve done over the last couple of weeks,” Ice Dogs head coach Ryan Theros said. “Yeah it’s a rivalry, but we don’t want to get too bottled up into that and make it something bigger than us taking care of what we can take care of.”
Both teams are level at 13 points through nine games played, putting them third and fourth in the Midwest Division Anchorage holds the higher spot due to a slightly better goal differential. Given their starts to the year, both appear to be on track to contend for top spots throughout the season.
The contests between Fairbanks and Anchorage always come with plenty of fiery moments, as last year saw a handful of chippy encounters, which have come to be expected in the emotionally-charged rivalry.
While the Wolverines ended with the Club 49 Cup and got the better of the season series a year ago, the Ice Dogs earned a measure of revenge in their final showings against Anchorage by sweeping them in their last series of the regular season.
“It’s a team that you get into some heated games with,” Theros said of the rivalry. “I think it’s something that you think about – they’re going to come in and want redemption for ending the regular season like that. For us, it’s just building on what we ended with last year and what we’ve continued to have success with this season.”
For Fairbanks, they enter off a series split against Janesville. Their leading goal-scorer has been Adam Timm (6), who is followed by Ian Norkevicus (5) and Brent Gulenchyn (5) to round out the top three in the category.
The Ice Dogs’ rotation of goalkeepers has proven to be a successful strategy, as all three have won two contests each in net to help the team reach their total of six on the year. All three hold over a .900 save percentage with Mason McElroy (.940) leading the way, followed by Kevin Jones (.930) and Charlie Menard (.916).
The Wolverines come to town winners of their last three, including a sweep over Kenai River for two of those. They hold one of the division’s most productive offenses at 3.89 goals per contest, yet their leading scorer, Toby Carlson, only holds five to sit atop 18 different skaters who have found the net.
The battle on the power play provides intrigue, as the Anchorage unit converts on 18.92% of their opportunities, which is ninth-best in the league, however, they’ll be going against a Fairbanks penalty kill unit that is successful 88.37% of the time, which is 10th-best.
The series will take place on Oct. 18 and 19 with 7:30 p.m. start times. It begins four-straight in-state rivalry games for the Ice Dogs, as they’ll travel to the Kenai River Brown Bears the following weekend.
“The big thing for us is taking some of our veterans and having them fill in some of our younger guys on what’s expected out of the games against the other Alaska teams,” Theros said. “The Club 49 Cup is at hand here. That’s something that the Ice Dogs have taken pride in over the years, so that’s another goal on top of everything else – that we get out on top right away on that. That starts with taking care of business this weekend.”