Jan. 12, 2007
Box Score
By Danny Martin, Staff Writer
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Published January 13, 2007
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Before Friday night at the Clarence Munn Ice Arena, the Alaska Nanooks-Michigan State Spartans rivalry in the Central Collegiate Hockey Association was already intense based on the past two seasons.
The Nanooks went 3-0 in the series in 2004-05, including a win in the third-place game of the Super Six Tournament in Detroit, and Michigan State won five out of seven meetings last season, capped by taking two out of three games in a quarterfinal playoff series last March here.
But the intensity stepped up Friday night with a postgame, handshake-line brawl that started with a heated exchange of words between head coaches Tavis MacMillan of Alaska and Rick Comley of Michigan State, and ended with each team losing two players for tonight's rematch, which also ends a four-game, two-week road trip for Alaska.
But one thing that didn't step up Friday night for the Nanooks was their record, as they fell 3-2 in overtime, losing their sixth straight game and suffering their eight defeat in their last nine contests. Junior left wing Aaron Lee and senior center Curtis Fraser scored and goaltender Wylie Rogers registered 22 saves for the Nanooks, who dropped to 5-7-3 league and 7-10-4 overall to slip into an eighth-place tie with Western Michigan after entering the night tied for seventh with the Broncos.
"We've been playing really well lately," said Alaska junior defenseman Darcy Campbell, "but we haven't been getting the scoring we need and the breaks that we need."
The postgame fracas started right after Spartans sophomore left wing Tim Kennedy scored the game-winner at 2:04 of the extra period.
The players were starting to line up for the postgame handshake as MacMillan and Comley came across to shake hands and then MacMillan told his counterpart that the Spartans had been running goaltender Wylie Rogers and the Spartans head coach vehemently disagreed.
"I thought they took liberties at our goaltender and they ran our goaltender at least three times," MacMillan said in a media gathering next door to the Nanooks locker room. "I just told him that we don't want to play that game.
"It's not how you play the game. You can't run the other team's goaltender, and they should know that -- they have one of the best goaltenders in the country (sophomore Jeff Lerg, who had 26 saves Friday)."
MacMillan and Comley pointed fingers at each other while exchanging words at center ice and Michigan State left wing Tyler Howells then exchanged words with MacMillan and lightly bumped into the coach, which triggered the fracas that led to fighting majors and game disqualications for four players. The Nanooks are scheduled not to have junior defenseman Darcy Campbell and sophomore forward Justin Binab tonight, while Michigan State will be without senior left wing and team captain Chris Lawrence and sophomore defenseman Brandon Gentile.
Gentile, though, was tussling with Nanooks right wing Justin Binab.
MacMillan, in the postgame interview, said he thought Howells grabbed his shoulder.
"I was talking to Rick and Howells was piping off to me, and grabbed my shoulder and one of our guys came to my back," MacMillan said.
However, a video from Lansing television station WLIX's late-night newscast showed that Howells had lightly bumped into MacMillan, but didn't put his hands on the Nanooks head coach.
Comley, in his postgame media conference, said that his team wasn't running Rogers, but there was a lot of traffic in front of both netminders.
Michigan State right wing Jim McKenzie was assessed a goaltender interference minor at 9:26 of the second period and center Justin Abdelkader crashed into Rogers at 19:46 of the third period after the Nanooks goaltender had gloved a shot by Bryan Lerg from the right circle as the Spartans junior was being backchecked by Nanooks defenseman Tyler Eckford. Abdelkader, whose goal earlier in the third forced overtime, was assessed contact-to-the-head cross-checking minor for an ensuing play behind the net.
"He doesn't advocate running goalies and I don't advocate running goalies," Comley said. "It wasn't that the goalies were runned -- there was too much traffic around them and the referee's got to step in and eliminate that early, and I thought the referee (Brian Aaron) didn't do that."
Rogers, though, saw things differently.
"There were guys crashing the net hard, and some of them were after the whistle," Rogers said. "All I can do is kind of just take it, I can't really can't stand up and try to block them out ... with guys flying in, there's not much I can do except to try to not get hurt."
Jeff Lerg said he's used to being roughed around.
"There's a lot of traffic in front of me," Lerg said. "I'm used to that, and that's the scouting report on me -- shoot high and get a lot of traffic in front."
Comley, though, described the postgame chaos as unfortunate.
"Coaches don't need to start going after each other," he said. "It was an unfortunate incident and it's not good for college hockey and it shouldn't be in college hockey. It's got to be handled properly."
"It's unfortunate we lost two kids a side because of what the coaches did."
The incident overshadowed an excellent game before a crowd of 6,338, which was 127 spectators short of a packed house.
MacKenzie set up Kennedy's game-winner by taking a pass from Bryan Lerg and moving along the right wing, where he was tightly pressured by Nathan Fornataro, but managed to send the puck along the boards where it found Kennedy's stick in the left circle. Kennedy skated toward the hash marks, made a move on Alaska left wing Kyle Greentree and lifted a shot that struck Rogers glove and then the crossbar before landing in the net and giving Michigan State sole possession of fourth place at 9-6-1 league and 13-8-1 overall.
Fraser snapped a 1-1 tie at 3:47 of the third period while recording his 99th career point. Fornataro launched the puck from the right point and Greentree got his stick on it, but Jeff Lerg kicked the puck into the slot. Fraser pounced on the carom and zipped in his 11th goal of the season into an open left side of the net.
"Greener made a good play and he could have played that puck," said Fraser, "but instead of playing it, he left it for me."
Abdelkader tied the score 2-2 at 10:44, just seconds after the Nanooks killed two power plays, as the Spartans sophomore came off the bench for a shift change and tapped the puck through a crowd in front of Rogers.
The Nanooks outshot the Spartans 6-3 in the scoreless second period, including holding Michigan State to one shot for the first 9:10. Michigan State center Chris Mueller provided the game's first goal at 3:45 of the opening period, faking a pass to Howells on a 2-on-1 and surprising Rogers with a backhand.
The Nanooks responded with an odd-man rush at 13:22, as Eckford crossed to Aaron Lee, who sent his third of the season under Jeff Lerg's pads. Lee's second goal in as many games was also set up by Binab collecting the puck in a crowd in front of the Nanooks penalty box and chipping it ahead to Eckford.
