Friday: Ice Dogs come back to defeat Brown Bears

The Fairbanks Ice Dogs defeated the Kenai River Brown Bears 5-2 on Friday in North American Hockey League action at the Soldotna Regional Sports Complex.

After the Bears took a 2-0 lead after the first period, the Ice Dogs scored five unanswered goals to take over the lead in the Club 49 Cup.

Fairbanks has seven, while the Anchorage Wolverines have six and Kenai River has two.

The Bears and Ice Dogs conclude Military Appreciation Weekend on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 7:30 p.m. at the sports complex.

Fairbanks improves to 10-3-1-2 and is in third place in the Midwest Division. The Bears, who have lost six straight at home, are 8-12-1-1 and are in seventh place in the division.

The Brown Bears took the 2-0 lead after the first period when Brady Engelkes scored on Greye Rampton and John Ross assists, and Joseph Yoon scored on the power play with help from Rampton and Jack Clarke.

“We got a couple of pucks to find the back of the net on some good plays,” Kenai River head coach Taylor Shaw said. “Especially net front, because we’re continuing to work on net-front presence.”

Kenai River was outshot in the period 19-10 on the way to losing the shot count 49-34 for the game.

“They just weren’t the high quality that we should have,” Fairbanks head coach Ryan Theros said of the first-period shots. “Then we just didn’t start on time, as far as making sure we were taking care of our net front.”

After the first period, the contest became an special-teams game and Fairbanks took advantage with three power-play goals and a short-handed goal.

Cam VanSickle scored on the power play with 17:25 left in the second period to make it 2-1.

Starting at the 12:14 mark, the Brown Bears successfully killed off two minutes of a five-on-three. Kenai earned a two-on-none breakaway coming out of the box, but Fairbanks goalie Charlie Menard, only 17, made the save.

“Your goalie is going to have to make all the saves they need to, then steal a few,” Shaw said. “He stole that one, right?”

The Bears still had a chance to retake the momentum when they earned a power play coming out of that two-on-none, but Robby House scored short-handed on that power play.

“We have stuff we work on every week, and we didn’t execute those details,” Shaw said. “That’s extremely frustrating for us.”

Before the period was out, Fairbanks led 4-2 on two goals from Luca Ricciardi, one on the power play.

Cole Burke added a power-play goal in the third period.

Fairbanks was 3 for 10 on the power play, while Kenai River was 1 for 6.

“Just mental toughness and discipline, right?” Theros said. “When they get undisciplined, we’re hopefully going to take advantage of it, and we did.”

Menard had 32 saves, while Owen Zenone stopped 44 for Kenai River.

“We were just chasing it the whole night, and I thought they played well,” Shaw said. “They possessed the pucks, they got pucks to the net and they played hard.

“We didn’t win many battles all night. We didn’t win puck races. We were just kind of out there. We weren’t playing.”

Friday

Ice Dogs 5, Brown Bears 2

Fai 0 4 1 —5

Ken 2 0 0 —2

First period — 1. Kenai River, Engelkes (Rampton, Ross), 5:33. 2. Kenai River, Yoon (Rampton, Clarke), pp, 18:56. Penalties — Fairbanks 2 for 4:00; Kenai River 1 for 2:00.

Second period — 3. Fairbanks, VanSickle (Rohrer, Ricciardi), pp, 2:35. 4. Fairbanks, House (Leonard), sh, 11:24. 5. Fairbanks, Ricciardi (Corneillie, Timm), pp, 14:14. 6. Fairbanks, Ricciardi (Collins, Vorobev), 18:47. Penalties — Fairbanks 3 for 6:00; Kenai River 6 for 12:00.

Third period — 7. Fairbanks, Burke (Carlson, Corneillie), pp, 13:33. Penalties — Fairbanks 3 for 14:00; Kenai River 5 for 18:00.

Shots on goal — Fairbanks 19-18-12—49; Kenai River 12-11-11—34.

Goalies — Fairbanks, Menard (34 shots, 32 saves); Kenai River, Zenone (49 shots, 44 saves).

Power plays — Fairbanks 3 for 10; Kenai River 1 for 6.