The Minnesota Wilderness kicked off its 3-game set vs. Fairbanks in style Friday night with a dominant 5-0 victory.
A 3-point game from Alessandro Lurati led the way offensively with one goal and two assists, while Peteris Purmalis and Ashton Dahms each scored twice and Daniel Astopovich earned two assists. In goal, Nick Erickson stopped all 35 Ice Dog shots for his third shutout of the season.
The Wilderness also benefited from solid special teams, going two-for-four on the man-advantage while the penalty-kill blanked Fairbanks on six chances.
It was the power play that generated the first Wilderness goal. Lurati and Beau Janzig cycled the puck up high to find Puramalis in the right circle. The Latvian veteran skated to the high slot and ripped a wrist shot that whipped past Ice Dog netminder Tyler Krivtsov with 9:45 left in the opening period.
The Wilderness made it 2-0 with 3:05 left when Lurati scored right off a face off in the left circle of the Fairbanks end. Oliver Stümpel won the face off and earned the assist on Lurati’s fourth tally in only six games with Minnesota.
Dahms posted his first of the game in the second period, which was the team’s second power play goal of the night. Some swift passing and puck movement from Gustavs Ozolins and Astopovich helped set up the marker. Astopovich made the final pass after skating to the bottom of the right circle and found Dahms in a similar location of the left circle, where he finished off the play to make it 3-0 with 3:31 left in the middle frame.
The Wilderness completed the scoring in the third thanks to two odd-man rushes. The first came with 10:33 left when Purmalis and Stümpel skated in on a 2-on-1 that Purmalis finished to make it 4-0 with his 11 th of the season. Lurati and Astopovich then helped set up Dahms for his second of the game when they broke into the Fairbanks zone on a 3-on-2 rush.
By scoring twice, Dahms moves into the NAHL’s goal scoring lead with 19 on the season.
And by keeping Fairbanks scoreless, the Wilderness has now posted six shutouts in the campaign, which also leads the league.
Minnesota outshot the Ice Dogs 36-35, with Krivtsov finishing with 31 saves in a losing effort.
Game 2 in the series is scheduled for 7:15 p.m. Saturday in Cloquet. Game 3 will be Sunday at 5:15 p.m.