March 10, 2008
Box Score
Published March 10, 2008
By Danny Martin
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
OMAHA, NE - Alaska found a second wind throughout three overtimes Sunday night in the third and deciding game of their Central Collegiate Hockey Association first-round series against Nebraska-Omaha. The Nanooks, though, couldn't stop a second effort by the Mavericks for the game-winning goal in a 2-1 loss in the 4-hour, 15-minute classic at the Qwest Center, and the eighth longest game in NCAA hockey history.
For 104 minutes, 21 seconds of playing time Sunday night, Alaska senior goaltender Wylie Rogers withstood 64 shots from the rivalry partner that he had faced 17 times in four seasons, including three times in the last four days in the first playoff series between the teams.
He and his teammates, though, weren't able to overcome the alert play of Mavericks junior center J.P. Platisha, who ended a nearly three-year goal scoring drought, while ending Alaska's bid for a fourth straight trip to a CCHA quarterfinal series on the road.
Plastisha won a faceoff against Nanooks freshman center Derek Klassen in the Alaska zone and drew the puck back to left wing Dan Charleston, who carried it behind the net. Charleston then centered to puck to right wing Tomas Klempa, whose shot from the low shot was stopped by Rogers.
Platisha then rolled in to the slot, collected the rebound and put it high over T.J. Campbell and Rogers, triggering a wild celebration from his teammates and 3,405 mostly partisan fans.
"Klempa got it off and the rebound was right there for me," Platisha said.
Rogers agreed that it was a fast play.
"He got a quick shot off and I knew the game-winning goal wouldn't be a real pretty goal," Rogers said. "To be honest, it happened real fast and that's kind of the way it goes. I'm real proud of these guys, every single guy on this team for sticking with it and doing what we did."
Campbell was the first Nanook to hug Rogers after the game.
"I just said to him that it was a hell of a career, a college career that we had there," Rogers said.
Junior center Trevor Hyatt scored a short-handed situation in the first period for the Nanooks, who finished at 9-21-5 overall in the first season of head coach Doc DelCastillo, a Nebraska-Omaha assistant from 2002-07.
"That's everything we have . . . it wasn't enough to get the job done," DelCastillo said after Sunday's first-round finale. "If it had went the other way I would have said the same thing - it's too bad one team had to lose because both teams can walk out of the rink real proud saying that they're winners."
The goal which assured the 17-17-4 Mavericks of a quarterfinal series this weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich., against the CCHA regular-season champion and second-ranked Michigan Wolverines was Platisha's first since November 2005.
"I didn't want my season to end tonight," Platisha said. "I definitely didn't think something like that was going to happen tonight. I wanted to come out and play as hard as I could and see what happens."
Rogers also didn't think he'd face a career single-game record 66 shots in three overtimes in what became his final night in the blue and gold uniform of his hometown University of Alaska Fairbanks.
"I wasn't expecting that, but I knew it wasn't going to be a high-scoring game tonight," Rogers said.
He also wasn't expecting Nebraska-Omaha athletic director Tim Miller to greet him in front of the Nanooks lockerroom and congratulate him on his performance.
"He said I had nothing to hang my head about and I played a great game," Rogers said. "That means a lot, especially coming from someone that high up for the opposing team."
Mavericks junior goaltender Jared Kaufmann, after recording 26 of his 51 saves in the three overtimes, also commended his fellow former Fairbanks Ice Dog. Until Sunday, neither player had experience a three-overtime adventure that featured a combined 118 shots.
"Never in my career," Kaufmann said. "To have it against Wylie, he's a great guy and I've known him ever since I played in Fairbanks. We both wished each other the best of luck from here and he had an incredible game and hats off to him."
Kudos to Kaufmann, too, because he denied six power plays from a Nanooks squad that had generated six goals with the man-advantage in Thursday's 4-3 loss and Saturday's 5-3 victory.
Two of Alaska's power plays Sunday occurred in the first two overtimes - Mavericks defenseman Eddie DelGrosso's hooking minor at 12:10 of the first OT and Nebraska-Omaha's bench minor for too many men on the ice at 52 seconds into the second OT.
"I think it was clicking and we had our opportunities, but we just didn't score on them," said junior defenseman Tyler Eckford, who assisted on Hyatt's goal. "I think in the last couple of games we had been bearing down and scoring. Obviously, they've had two games to look at us and, obviously, I think their penalty kill was a lot better tonight."
The Nanooks also survived a pair of minors to freshman right wing Landon Novotney - roughing at 16:56 of the first OT and tripping at 2:58 of the second.
One of the Nanooks' best chances to win occurred at 3:19 of the third overtime, when sophomore center Dion Knelsen skated into the slot and fired a shot that Kaufmann stopped. Novotney gathered the rebound in front of the Mavericks goalie, but his shot sailed high into the safety net.
"I had a chance to bury the rebound and I just got too much of the puck," said Novotney, whose eight shots matched Eckford for the team high. "I tried to put it underneath the bar and I got too much on it."
The Nanooks grabbed a 1-0 lead at 11:06 of the first period with only their second short-handed goal of the season.
Freshman right wing Matt Ambroz's deflection tied the game at 1 for Nebraska-Omaha at 14:19 on a 5-on-4 power play,a few seconds after Alaska killed a 4-on-3 power play.
Center Joey Martin skated from the right corner, across the circle and flicked a shot that skipped off Ambroz's blade and into the left corner of the net.
