For the second straight weekend, the Anchorage Wolverines were able to pull off a two-game sweep over the Kenai River Brown Bears in North American Hockey League play.

The Wolverines defeated the Brown Bears 5-4 in a shootout Friday at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex, then Anchorage won 6-2 on Saturday at the Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.

The Bears have lost five straight overall and are in seventh place in the Midwest Division at 21-28-4-4.

The Wolverines, at 35-16-2-4, are tied for second with the Fairbanks Ice Dogs, with the Wisconsin Windigo having clinched the division title.

The Bears can still have a say in who gets home ice in the first round series between the Wolverines and Ice Dogs. Kenai River finishes its season with 7:30 p.m. games Friday and Saturday, April 11 and 12, in Fairbanks.

The Wolverines close with a pair of games against the Chippewa (Wisconsin) Steel, which is three points up on the Minnesota Wilderness with two games to play in the battle for the fourth playoff spot out of the Midwest.

In the Club 49 Cup, Fairbanks leads with 29, while Anchorage has 27 and Kenai River has 18.

Friday, in their final home game of the season, the Bears came back from a 4-2 deficit in the final four minutes to force overtime, but Anchorage had all three shooters score to dominate the shootout.

With the sports complex pretty full and Luke Hause, Luke Lizak, Andy Larson and Owen Zenone playing their final home games for the Bears, the game had a bit of a playoff atmosphere even though the Bears have been eliminated from the playoff chase.

“It’s important for those guys,” Kenai River head coach Taylor Shaw said of Hause, Lizak, Larson and Zenone. “We have three (games) left, so it’s going to continue to be important.

“To be able to give the community a game here in the last game of the year, I think it’s pretty special. They got their money’s worth, and hopefully we got some new Brown Bear fans for next season.”

Wolverines head coach Nick Walters said he wants to be rolling heading to the playoffs and is less concerned about home ice advantage.

“You’ve got to learn to win on the road,” Walters said. “Regardless of whether we start in Anchorage or Fairbanks, you’ve got to win in both places.”

With some exceptions, Walters was happy with the way his team played Friday.

Kenai River scored twice in the final two minutes of the first period to take a 2-0 lead to the locker room.

Dylan Gillespie scored on the power play, then Michael Fiedorczuk banged in a nice one-timer on a pass from Dario Lass.

Walters told his team Kenai River would push in front of the large home crowd. He said liked his team’s first period.

“That was a really nice shot,” Walters said of the one-timer. “Those were two really nice goals where they capitalized on mistakes.”

Anchorage goalie William Lubimov made a couple nice saves early in the second period to keep the deficit at two, then the Wolverines’ Aaron VanWie scored twice on deflections in front of the net for a 2-all game headed to the third.

Just 3:08 into the third period, Anchorage was up 3-2 when Patrick Tolan scored on the power play by banging one in off a Kenai River defender.

Shaw said there was misfortune involved in each of the first three goals, but at the same time Anchorage did win the shot count 34-21.

“You create your own puck luck,” the coach said.

No luck was needed with 8:34 to play, when Taisetsu Ushio flicked a saucer pass all the way across the ice to Cole Christian, who collected the puck and swept it into the far corner in one motion.

“We practice those plays, not the sauce, but the catch and release, every week,” Walters said. “When you see a guy get rewarded by scoring a goal, the reps remove doubt, so to speak, right?

“That’s a year’s worth of repetitions paying off.”

The late two-goal deficit was formidable, but Walters knew the Bears were not done. That’s why what he termed a retaliation penalty with 5:36 left bothered him.

“They’ve played us hard all year,” he said of the Bears. “I’ve never seen this team quit.”

Hause, assisted by Larson and Joseph Yoon, scored just seconds after the power play expired to give the Bears life. Yoon was playing in his 100th NAHL game.

“For those guys, it’s not the way they wanted it to finish, but it was memorable,” Shaw said of the four aging out players. “Hause had the third goal. He’ll keep that with him for a while.”

In the final minutes, Anchorage was able to keep possession of the puck to make it hard for the Bears to remove goalie Mitchell Mccusker.

The Bears finally did and Fiedorczuk tied it after a scramble in front of the net with 15 seconds left.

“That’s the remarkable part,” Shaw said. “When we got that last one to tie it up, there wasn’t even a whistle in the last two minutes of the hockey game.

“It was all free flow, and we were just trying to manage it. It was pretty cool.”

Anchorage had the bulk of the chances in the three-on-three, five-minute overtime, but Mccusker made some dandy saves.

The best was with 1:43 left, when Mccusker was down on the ice and Christian appeared to just have to elevate the puck to score. Mccusker popped up just in time to save the game.

In the shootout, though, Tolan, Andrew Karkoc and Christian scored to swamp the goal by Larson.

“He’d be the first to tell you he wants all those shootout goals back, but he gave us a chance to win,” Shaw said of Mccusker. “He made some big-time saves in big moments. That’s what he’s been able to do all year.”

Mccusker had 30 saves, while Lubimov had 17.

Walters said it was the first time he’s had all three score in the shootout. He said it was a complete turnaround from March 15 at the Sullivan Arena, when Mccusker beat the Wolverines in a shootout when all of Anchorage’s shooters missed the net.

With the solid goaltending and contributions from up and down the lineup, Walters said this was good game to build for the playoffs.

“When you’re getting all four lines chipping in with scoring, that’s a good thing to have at this time,” he said.

Saturday, the Wolverines kept rolling.

Just 4:19 into the game, Anchorage had a five-on-three power play and totally cashed it out on goals by Toby Carlson and Jack Darby.

Shaw took out Zenone after five shots and two goals in favor of Mccusker, but that didn’t slow the Wolverines.

Ushio, Karkoc and Merit Waldrop would score before the end of the first period.

“We couldn’t slow the storm there in the first but we reset so in the second period it didn’t continue to get away from us, which was the good part,” Shaw said.

The Brown Bears did win the rest of the game 2-1.

“We gotta start on time. It’s the most important part, right?” Shaw said. “We still got two games left. It’s important next week that we start on time.”

Austin Petersen, assisted by Gavin Jensen and Carter McCormick, got the Bears on the board in the second period.

Then Hause scored for the second straight night, assisted by Larson on the power play.

“Luke Hause scored in back-to-back games, which was nice,” Shaw said. “You don’t see a D do that very often.”

Christian scored in the third period for the Wolverines.

Mccusker stopped 34 of 38 shots, while Manzi had 20 saves.

Shaw said the positive is the team continues to respond to challenges, whether it was being down 4-2 late on Friday, or 5-0 early on Saturday.

“You give up five goals in the first period, you’re asking to continue to let it happen for another 40 minutes,” he said. “But they responded.”

Friday

Wolverines 5, Brown Bears 4, SO

Anc 0 2 2 0 1 —5

Ken 2 0 2 0 0 —4

First period — 1. Kenai River, Gillespie, pp, 18:48. 2. Kenai River, Fiedorczuk (Lass, Mullen), 19:00. Penalties — Anchorage 1 for 2:00; Kenai River 1 for 2:00.

Second period — 3. Anchorage, VanWie (Greenough, Darby), 8:46; 4. Anchorage, VanWie (Darby, Stimple), 11:37. Penalties — Anchorage 1 for 2:00; Kenai River 2 for 4:00.

Third period — 5. Anchorage, Tolan (Stimple, Darby), pp, 3:10; 6. Anchorage, Christian (Ushio, Gentzler), 11:25. 7. Kenai River, Hause (Larson, Yoon), 16:27. 8. Kenai River, Fiedorczuk, 19:45. Penalties — Anchorage 1 for 2:00; Kenai River 1 for 2:00.

Overtime — none. Penalties — none.

Shootout — Anchorage 3 (Tolan G, Karkoc G, Christian G), Kenai River 1 (Sisik NG, Larson G).

Shots on goal — Kenai River 7-5-8-1—21; Anchorage 10-11-8-5—34.

Goalies — Anchorage, Lubimov (21 shots, 17 saves); Kenai River, Mccusker (34 shots, 30 saves).

Power plays — Anchorage 1 for 3; Kenai River 1 for 2.

Saturday

Wolverines 6, Brown Bears 2

Ken 0 2 0 —2

Anc 5 0 1 —6

First period — 1. Anchorage, Carlson (Ushio, Devlin), pp, 5:03. 2. Anchorage, Darby (Stimple, Tolan), pp, 5:52. 3. Anchorage, Ushio (Stimple, Devlin), 8:28. 4. Anchorage, Karkoc (Greenough, VanWie), 9:30. 5. Anchorage, Waldrop (Stimple, Evert), 12:53. Penalties — Kenai River 3 for 6:00; Anchorage 1 for 2:00.

Second period — 6. Kenai River, Petersen (Jensen, McCormick), 10:18. 7. Kenai River, Hause (Larson), pp, 19:16. Penalties — Kenai River 1 for 2:00; Anchorage 1 for 2:00.

Third period — 8. Anchorage, Christian (Ushio, Darby), 7:55. Penalties — Kenai River 2 for 4:00; Anchorage 1 for 2:00.

Shots on goal — Kenai River 3-8-11—22; Anchorage 15-19-9—43.

Goalies — Kenai River, Zenone (5 shots, 3 saves), Mccusker (38 shots, 34 saves); Anchorage, Manzi (22 shots, 20 saves).

Power plays — Kenai River 1 for 3; Anchorage 2 for 6.