Through three periods, overtime and beyond three rounds of a shootout Saturday night, the Minnesota Wilderness and Fairbanks Ice Dogs played a hockey game like two heavyweight prize fighters in a championship bout. The two squads went the distance, trading scoring chance after scoring chance, but like two boxers who refused to hit the mat, both team’s netminders kept closing the door, denying each opportunity.
The game’s stars throughout the night were Nick Erickson, who succeeded in following up a shutout performance from the night before with another in his encore, and Kyle Abrahamson, the hometown kid who matched Erickson save for save until the very end.
The end came off the stick of Wilderness captain Gustavs Ozolins, the man who represents the heart of the soul of his squad. Ozolins scored the contest’s only goal in the shootout’s fourth round to give the Wilderness the 1-0 win.
Combined with Friday’s 5-0 victory, the win ensures Minnesota wins the weekend series, with the finale set for Sunday night.
It also extends Fairbanks’ losing streak to four games, a skid in which the team has scored only one goal, dating back to the first period in its contest vs. Chippewa on Dec. 1. Desperate to eliminate that scoring drought, the Ice Dogs dominated the third period Saturday, outshooting Minnesota 17-7, and applying pressure that pinned the Wilderness back in its defensive zone for most of the final frame. For the game, Fairbanks finished with a 39-34 advantage in shots on goal.
Erickson stood tall on each shot he faced, some of which forced the veteran puckstopper to be at the top of his game. Twice he denied the Ice Dogs’ co-leading scorer Jake Cameron on point blank attempts from the slot, with the second coming in the late stages of the third period.
Abrahamson also kept the Wilderness scorers at bay. Playing in the rink in which he learned the game, the Esko native and former Cloquet-Esko-Carlton Lumberjack shined throughout. Among those he denied included the NAHL’s co-leading goal scorer Ashton Dahms. Abrahamson made arguably his biggest save when he held off Dahms on a breakaway in the first minute of overtime.
In the shootout, the main 3-round portion saw Nick Blood, Hermantown native Wyatt Carlson and Cameron all fall short of Fairbanks’ attempt to beat Erickson. The Wilderness also failed to solve Abrahamson when it sent Oliver Stümpel, Dahms and Alessandro Lurati to shoot.
In the fourth round, after Marc Lund fired the Ice Dogs’ attempt over the Wilderness net, it brought up Ozolins. After gathering the puck at center ice, the Latvian defenseman first maneuvered toward the right boards then broke toward the net, picking up his pace with each stride and, once he got to the slot, with a left-handed shot, he tossed the puck past Abrahamson’s glove side into the back of the net to nail his team’s win in the shootout and the game.
It marked the second time this season that the Wilderness and Ice Dogs finished in a shootout, and as he did the first time on Oct. 7 in Fairbanks, it was Ozolins who ended the game with a goal against Abrahamson.
Ozolins says he remembered how he beat Abrahamson previously, pondered how to go after him if he had to face him again, and decided to try a different approach. In his first game, Ozolins scored by shooting at Abrahamson’s low blocker side.
“I went in with a different mindset today,” said Ozolins. “I knew he knew what I was going to do, and I was looking for something else.”
Ozolins says he drummed up a plan to shoot at the glove side and decided to try it out.
“That was my move going into this week even if we went to shootout and it paid off.”
It paid off like a knockout in the 12th round of a boxing match.
Meanwhile, Erickson has now posted back-to-back shutouts for the second time this season, and has stopped all 74 shots Fairbanks (11-13-5) has sent in his direction this weekend. He’s now tied for the NAHL lead with four shutouts this season.
Game 3 in the weekend series begins at 5:15 p.m. Sunday. It will mark the final home game before the Wilderness (18-8-3) embarks on its Christmas break.