Avs eager to stop slide

WASILLA — The Alaska Avalanche will have one thing and one thing only on their minds when they take the ice against the Topeka RoadRunners at 7 p.m. Wednesday — snap the losing streak.

The Avs have lost 13 straight, and on Wednesday will be looking for their first victory since a 3-2 win over Fairbanks in the Interior on Jan. 4.

Alaska will be four games into a 12-game homestand on Wednesday, and the contest will also mark the start of a three-game set against the RoadRunners at the Curtis C. Menard II Memorial Ice Arena.

The Avs and RoadRunners will also tangle on Friday and Saturday.

The teams have already faced five times this season with the Kansas-based program boasting a perfect 5-0-0 mark against the Valley team.

“That’s a good hockey team; they’re tough,” Alaska head coach and general manager Jamie Smith said after Topeka’s 6-2 win over the Avalanche last Wednesday. “They’re 20-year-old loaded. They’ve got some skilled guys. They’ve got some Division I guys.”

One of those Division I guys is Topeka defenseman Aaron Gens, who has committed to join the University of Alaska Fairbanks program next fall. Gens sports a +25 plus-minus rating, tied for fifth best in the North American Hockey League, and is one of the reasons Topeka held the Avs to just 15 shots in the 6-2 win last week.

Going into that game, Smith said a key against Topeka is putting pressure on those blueliners to get things going in the Avs’ offensive zone.

The Avs also know they have to be better about getting shots on goal.

“Fire the puck on the net, you see what they’re doing,” Smith said last week, referring to Topeka’s tendency to pepper the Alaska goal. “They’re throwing it on the net every chance they get, and then all the sudden, boom — there’s a rebound. The puck lands on somebody’s stick, and there’s a goal.”

Alaska did show improvements on the shot chart during its two-game series against Fairbanks last weekend. The Avs had 21 shots in a 6-1 loss to the Ice Dogs on Friday, and 22 in a 4-3 loss on Saturday.

Topeka, on the tail end of a nine-game road trip, is showing signs of wear. The RoadRunners dropped two of three games to Kenai River during a three-game trip to the Peninsula over the weekend.

Kenai River opened with a 7-5 win on Thursday and slipped past the RoadRunners in overtime 3-2. On Sunday, Topeka prevented the sweep with a 4-1 win.

Alaska came its closest to grabbing a win in more than a month on Saturday.

Behind Kyle Pichler and Tommy Engseth goals, Alaska took a 2-0 lead early in the second. But Topeka scored four goals within a six-minute stretch to squash the Avs’ hopes of winning for the first time in February.

Tyler Currier also scored in the loss.

Topeka currently stands in second place in the NAHL South Division with 61 points and a 27-10-7 mark. The RoadRunners have been particularly dangerous on special teams. Topeka is third in power-play percentage, converting 19.19 percent of its opportunities, and second in penalty kill, preventing opponents from scoring on the power play 88.49 percent of the time.

Alaska is in the middle of the NAHL pack in both areas.

The Avs still sit in fifth place of the South, with 32 points and a 15-28-2 record.

Despite the losing streak, the Avs are still firmly in the playoff race. Alaska sits just six points behind fourth-place Texas for the fourth and final South Division playoff spot, and Texas has played in four more games than the Avs. The Tornado have lost four straight.

South starts tourney 0-2

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — The South Division all-star team has started the NAHL Top Prospects Tournament with an 0-2

mark.

A pair of Alaska forwards, Alex Young and Jeremiah Dargis, have skated in both games for the South.

Young, an Anchorage native, collected an assist during a 6-3 loss to the North on Sunday.

In two games Young has three shots and an assist. Dargis, a former Wasilla High School standout, also has three shots in two games.

The South suffered an 8-2 loss to a team from the United States National Development Program on Monday, and cap the tournament with a game against the Central all-stars today at 9 a.m. AST.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.