Dec. 31, 2007
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By Danny Martin
Staff Writer
Published December 31, 2007
There's no Cup for the Alaska Nanooks this season, but there's also no sweep by the Alaska Anchorage Seawolves.
Saturday night's fourth and final game of the Alaska Airlines Governor's Cup Series ended in a 2-2 tie at the Carlson Center.
While they prevented UAA from winning four in a row in this season's series, the Nanooks couldn't halt the disappointment of watching the Seawolves raise the Cup on Alaska's home ice.
"Us seniors know it means so much to the community," left wing Aaron Lee, one of five Alaska seniors, said outside of the Nanooks locker room. "We wanted to go on a winning streak here and it's always tough to hand it over."
Lee and fellow seniors Wylie Rogers (goaltender), Brandon Gawryletz (center), T.J. Campbell (defenseman and team captain) and Ryan Muspratt (right wing) raised the Cup as freshmen and sophomores. Since the 2005 Governor's Cup series, the Nanooks have gone 0-6-2 against the Seawolves.
UAA secured its second straight Cup with Friday's 4-2 victory and won 4-3 and 5-3, respectively, on Oct. 19-20 at Sullivan Arena in Anchorage.
"It's really good for us. They won it about five years straight," said UAA junior defenseman Mat Robinson, whose power-play goal forced overtime.
Robinson was also one of the first Seawolves to raise the Cup after it was presented by Alaska Labor Commissioner Click Bishop in a postgame ceremony.
"We're trying to start something with our program, and winning it twice in a row is a big step in the right direction," Robinson said.
The Nanooks, with goals by Gawryletz and junior center Adam Naglich and 30 saves from Rogers, put this season's Cup series behind them and started looking ahead to Columbus, Ohio, where they face the Ohio State Buckeyes on Friday and Saturday in the start of a two-week Central Collegiate Hockey Association road trip. Alaska, 3-10-3 overall , also faces Ferris State in Big Rapids, Mich., on Jan. 11-12.
"We've got a big road trip coming up, we need to get some points and we need to continue to move up in the standings," said Alaska head coach Doc DelCastillo in the postgame media conference. "We need to try to put ourselves in a situation where we'll be playing here in the first round of the playoffs."
The Nanooks are in ninth place in the CCHA at 3-7-2 and need to finish in at least eighth place to secure home ice for the first round of the playoffs in March.
The Nanooks seemed close to securing a victory Saturday night. Gawryletz gave them a 2-1 lead before Robinson tied it, and then at 16:03 of the period, Alaska junior defenseman Tyler Eckford ripped a shot from the perimeter that seemed to go in. Instead, it went off both posts and popped back out.
UAA center Peter Cartwright also unleashed an overtime-ending shot that glanced off the crossbar and soared into the safety net.
"At times, it was just a game of bounces," DelCastillo said. "I was proud of the guys and the way they competed. I thought they played hard."
The Nanooks gained a power play at 48 seconds into overtime due to a Cartwright hooking minor, but they couldn't capitalize, generating only two shots during the session.
The Nanooks took a 2-1 lead at 55 seconds into the third period on a rarity -- a goal by Gawryletz.
UAA defenseman Shane Lovdahl, who had four assists Friday, tried to backhand a pass to Robinson near the left point. Gawryletz intercepted the puck, chipped it ahead and broke in alone to send his second career goal through the pads of Seawolves goaltender Jon Olthuis.
"They tried to throw a blind pass there across the blue line and I was kind of second defender, playing the D side," Gawryletz said. "It kind of jumped to me, I saw the opportunity and I had a breakaway."
It was exactly 14 months and two days since Gawryletz scored. His other goal occured in a 2-1 victory over Ferris State in a Central Collegiate Hockey Association game at the Carlson Center on Oct. 27, 2006.
The Seawolves responded for the tie, and forced overtime, with their fourth power-play marker of the weekend. Robinson snuck behind a crowd in front of Rogers and planted center Paul Crowder's pass into an open right side of the net at 7:45.
It was also the first of three straight man-advantage situations for the Seawolves from the 6:07 mark to the 13:41 of the third.
The game was also delayed for about five minutes after assistant referee Chris Milles was hit in the face by a puck that Eckord had dumped off the glass near the left point by the Seawolves bench.
The puck struck Milles above his nose at 16:22 of the third and he was replaced by Darren Kadel, who had worked Friday's game. Milles received stitches after the game from Alaska team doctor Cary Keller.
The intrastate rivals matched each other in shots -- 12 apiece -- and goals -- one each -- in the second period to break a scoreless deadlock.
Naglich produced the game's first goal -- and his first since a 4-4 tie at Nebraska-Omaha on Nov. 24 -- on a power play at 16:32, as the junior snuck in at the left side of the crease to tap in Dion Knelsen' crossing pass. Freshman left wing Dustin Sather also assisted for his second point on the weekend.
"I didn't have to do much work there -- it was all Dion and Slats," Naglich said of the backdoor play.
The Seawolves (6-7-4) evened the score at 5:29 with Crowder scoring with a bouncing puck on a give-and-go play with left wing Merit Waldrop.
It seemed the Nanooks were going to end the period with a power play after UAA defenseman Luka Vidmar collected an interference minor at 18:22. The power play was short-lived after Eckford was called for holding Cartwright 33 seconds later following a turnover.
Each team finished the game 1-for-7 on the power play.
