OH, SNAP!

WASILLA — If the Alaska Avalanche’s New Year’s resolution was to go undefeated for the second half of the season, A series sweep this weekend of the Kenai River Brown Bears at the Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Arena was a good start.

That wins Friday and Saturday snapped a dismal 11-game skid for the Avs makes them more important to the team.

After a nearly two-week hiatus and a changing of calendars, the Alaska Avalanche started the New Year off in style by defeating the Kenai River Brown Bears 3-2 Friday night, then again 4-2 Saturday, to sweep the visitors and pull ahead of Kenai for third place of the North American Hockey League’s West Division.

Friday night’s victory not only started out the New Year with a win, but also snapped the Avalanche’s 11-game losing streak.

“We had a really good win tonight,” head coach David Boitz said following Friday’s effort. “We needed that. It’s been a tough stretch for our boys lately.”

Boitz said his team came out of the gates a little rusty after 13 days since their last game. But after a Kenai double minor penalty for high sticking about five minutes into the game the Avs found themselves on a four-minute power play. For the first two minutes of the advantage Kenai did a good job of dumping the puck out of its own zone, preventing the Avs from setting up its offense.

But the Avs capitalized with 49 seconds left on the power play when Kyle Pichler fed Sean McNeely with a pass on the blue line that McNeely ripped towards the net. Justin Giles deflected the shot from the slot into the net to give the Avs the 1-0 lead 8:42 into the first period.

The Avs struck again on a power play 17:30 into the first when Jake Parenteu one-timed a Tyler Currier pass from the blue line past Kenai netminder Zach Hansen. Also assisting on the play was newly acquired Thomas Erlacher, getting his first point as an Avalanche. Parenteu’s goal put the Avs into the first intermission with a 2-0 lead.

Both teams came out hard in the second period with fast-paced hockey that featured many odd-man rushes on net. But all attempts to find the back of the net were denied by both goaltenders. Avs goalie Dylan Woodring had an especially nice save several minutes into the second period. Kenai came in on a three-on-two and fired a one-timer from the slot. Woodring made the initial save, but the puck started to dribble toward the back of the net before he quickly turned around to swipe the puck out of the crease.

“Woodring played really good for us tonight,” Boitz said. “Both tenders played great.”

The Bears finally broke onto the scoreboard midway through the second period.

Ryan Townsend took a puck from behind the net and skated around to the front. An Avalanche player then hit Townsend while he was shooting. As he shot, Townsend crashed into Woodring, knocking him off his feet as the puck trickled into the empty goal behind him for the Bears’ first tally of the night.

The Townsend goal would be all the offense the Brown Bears could muster, but both teams made impressions with some hard hitting.

Avs 4, Bears 2

Following up on Friday’s momentum, the Avs scored a trio of third-period goals to come from behind and sweep Kenai 4-2.

The Avalanche and the Bears both traded goals in the first period, and the score was holding steady for most of the second. The Brown Bears pulled ahead second on an unusual goal that could have cost the Avs the game.

Kenai forward Chris Annunziato was skating with the puck in the Avs zone and threw a pass to the slot where there was no one except Avalanche players. The puck hit off of one of an Alaska defensemen’s stick and redirected between the legs of goaltender Nate Pellegrino to put the Brown Bears into the third period with a 2-1 lead.

The Avalanche responded with two goals within a 55-second span to regain the lead.

Cory Bellole got the Avs started in the third with a beautiful goal set up by Kyle Pichler. Pichler and Bellole were coming down on the lone Bear’s defenseman two-on-one. Pichler and Bellole crossed, Pichler than deked Fairbanks goalie Zach Hansen out of position before sliding the puck over to Bellole, who slid the puck into the net to tie the game.

Less than a minute later, Jake Parenteu took the puck from behind the Avalanche net, then proceeded to skate end to end with the puck before shooting from the slot in traffic to beat the Kenai goalie and give the Avalanche the lead at 3-2.

The Avs survived a late Kenai rush and Nardo Nagtzaam scored an open-net goal to seal the game 4-2.

Pellegrino made 19 saves off of 21 shots for the Avs, while Hansen made 34 stops on 37 shots in the loss.

Contact Tyson Alger at sports@frontiersman.com or 352-2273.