Nine goals against the Nanooks this weekend put them down twice by the number-two ranked team in the nation, the Miami RedHawks. In December, the Nanooks shut out the then-No. 1 ranked team in the RedHawks’ home arena in Oxford, Ohio.
Alaska was on their game Friday night, but it still wasn’t enough to overcome the RedHawks from Miami University, who walked away with a 2-0 win.
Saturday’s game proved far worse, as the RedHawks scored time after time, leaving the Nanooks’ home arena with a 7-2 victory.
“(Friday) night, that is us overachieving,” coach Doc DelCastillo said after Saturday’s loss. “It’s still not good enough to win hockey games against them. Tonight is what it looks like when we’re average against them.”
“That’s what it looks like when a team that’s a lot better than you outworks you,” said DelCastillo, “It can get very ugly very quick and they wanted it more than we did, they outworked us and the skill discrepancy is way too much for us to allow that.”
Miami got on the board just a minute and a half into the game when Jarod Palmer took a shot from near the top of the left circle. The puck hit just inside the right post and trickled along the goal line before crossing again.
Despite a 10-4 shooting effort in the first period, it wasn’t until there were just 14 seconds left in the first period that Miami struck again. The RedHawks were shorthanded from a Gary Steffes charging penalty, but that didn’t stop junior Justin Mercier. Mercier got the puck front and center and sent it soaring just under goaltender Wylie Rogers’ glove and into the net.
The No. 2-ranked RedHawks used their speed to walk around the Nanooks.
“You’ve got to give credit to that team, because everyone can skate,” said Alaska senior Ryan Muspratt after the game, “They were definitely walking around us, getting the pucks quicker than us tonight.”
In the second period, it was clear that the Nanooks couldn’t keep up. A dump-and-change strategy emerged, and when questioned about it after the game, DelCastillo answered: “It might have something to do with the minute-twenty we spent in our zone while Miami was going like this the whole time and our guys are dead tired and they have to get off the ice.” He made circles in the air with his finger to emphasize his point.
The RedHawks scored three goals in the second period. Justin Vaive and Tommy Wingels put in even-strength goals, while Carter Camper put in a powerplay goal.
Near the middle of the period, the Nanooks started to generate some offense. Freshmen Dustin Sather and Derek Klassen had a promising two-on-two break, but Klassen just couldn’t get to Sather’s pass because of the defender.
Finally, at the end of the period, the Nanooks finally found some momentum. Miami’s Mitch Ganzak got a penalty for holding the stick with just 54 seconds left in the period. Miami still gave the Nanooks a scare when Mercier nearly had another breakaway. Alaska’s Landon Novotney took a pass from Sather just to the right of Miami goaltender Jeff Zatkoff and put it in for his team-high tenth goal of the season, and put Alaska on the board in their home rink.
In the third period, sophomore goaltender Erik Largen made his regular-season debut for the Nanooks. It wasn’t an easy debut. Just under two minutes into the period, Miami captain Ryan Jones took advantage of a powerplay and took a pass from junior Alec Martinez and slid the puck past Largen, for his 22nd goal of the season and putting Miami at a daunting 6-1 advantage.
Nanook junior Braden Walls scored his third goal of the season when he tapped in a long pass from defender Tyler Eckford. The Nanooks seemed to be building up momentum, and found more scoring opportunities that didn’t make the cut; a two-on-one with a high shot, a missed shot, solid goaltending, and shots hitting Nanook players.
Miami’s final goal came on another powerplay from Carter Camper while goalie Largen was screened and couldn’t catch sight of the puck.
Miami out-shot the Nanooks 31-22. Largen made 10 saves in his first game of the regular season. He played earlier this season in an exhibition game against Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in which each goaltender played a period. In that game, Largen made six saves and had one goal scored against him.
The Nanooks dropped their record to 5-15-4 overall, while the RedHawks improved to 25-3-0 overall.
As for how this loss will affect Alaska’s attitude going into this weekend’s series against Western Michigan, coach and players agree, that it’s just best to move on.
“We forget about it, we move on,” said senior captain T.J. Campbell, “we have Western coming in this weekend. They’re beatable, we know what it takes to beat them. We’ll work hard in practice all week to prepare for it and we’ll go from there, we’ll be ready that first period come Friday night.”