Avs eager to climb back to top

PALMER — The Alaska Avalanche spent a chunk of the season at the top of the North American Hockey League West Division. But after a long break that lasted most of the month of February, the Avs are looking up at a pair of teams.

Tonight, the Avs hope to start the climb back up the West Division ladder.

Alaska (29-16-4), which currently sits in third place of the NAHL West, hosts the Fresno Monsters in a two-game series that starts tonight at 7:30 p.m. at the MTA Events Center in Palmer.

“We knew this was going to happen. We knew we’d run away with it for a little bit, we had so many games in hand and we were playing good hockey,” Alaska assistant coach Josh Petrich said.

But as Alaska was on its month-long break from the game schedule, the Avs knew the West rivals would catch up.

Fairbanks (33-11-7) jumped into first place, and with 73 points in the standings, the Ice Dogs hold a seven-point lead over second-place Wenatchee (30-15-6). The Wild hold a four-point lead over the Avs.

“I don’t think it’s time to panic, absolutely not,” Petrich said. “We do need to start taking care of business, get back to playing the way we were playing early in the season.”

Alaska is 1-2-1 in four games against Kenai River since the end of the long break. Last weekend, the Brown Bears swept the Avs in a two-game series in Soldotna. The Bears used a shootout to beat Alaska 5-4 the first night and edged the Avs 4-3 the next.

Alaska fell behind 2-0 in the first game and 2-1 in the next.

“We’ve been starting slow recently. We’ve got to fix that,” Petrich said. “We didn’t do that early on.”

Alaska has 11 games left in the regular season. Next week the Avs host Kenai River and make a trip to Fairbanks the following week.

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.