Avs facing elimination; Wild win leaves Wenatchee one step away from clinching series

WENATCHEE — Jack Nicoll was in the right place at the right time, and now he and the Wenatchee Wild are on the brink of where they hope to be.

Nicoll scored on a fortuitous hop to give Wenatchee a 3-2 lead against the Alaska Avalanche on Friday, and the Wild went on to a 4-2 win. With the victory, the Wild have a 2-1 series lead and can close out the Avalanche on Saturday.

“Corbin Brown shot it wide and it bounced back right to me. I just lifted it over their goalie,” Nicoll said of the game-winning goal.

Brown’s miss caromed off the end boards and right to Nicoll at the left of the goal, and he found the back of the net at 8:03 to give the Wild the lead for good.

“It was a good game tonight,” Avalanche coach Dave Boitz said. “It was anybody’s game in the third period.

“Both teams played with a lot of energy and there were a lot of chances either way. I was really proud of our effort tonight.”

Tyler Currier created several of those opportunities for the Avs. Several times he was able to use his speed to get behind the Wenatchee defense and in on goalie Mathieu Dugas, but he was never able to get off a good shot from close range.

“Dugas was solid tonight,” Boitz said. “We helped him out a few times, but we had some great chances and didn’t get the puck into the net. Hopefully we’ll be able to do that (Saturday) night.”

Dugas really didn’t have a chance on Alaska’s two goals, both of which came on 2-on-1 rushes.

Kyle Pichler gave the Avs a 1-0 lead at 2:32 of the first period, scoring a short-handed goal on a pretty feed from Currier. Alaska’s second goal was scored by Ryan Kowal at 4:04 of the third period, again on a 2-on-1, this time after the Wild had coughed up the puck in their own end.

As has been the case all series, the Avs forecheck continued to give the Wild trouble getting out of their own end.

“We’re pretty good at taking the lanes away, and we’ve watched a lot of film on them,” Boitz said. “I don’t know if they’ve got it figured out yet either, so I don’t want to talk about it a lot.”

Wild associate head coach Ryan McKelvie said a better breakout is just a matter of execution.

“They just come really aggressively and they clog the walls,” McKelvie said. “They put a lot of pressure on our defensemen. They need to go back quick for the puck and know what they’re going to do with it when they get it, and our forwards have to give our defensemen options.”

The Wild tied the game at 3:33 of the second period on a goal by DJ Vandercook, then took the lead on a textbook redirect by Nic Dowd at 13:50 of the third.

“Mike (Voran) and DJ did a good job, I couldn’t have done it without my linemates,” Dowd said. “I passed it to Mike went to the net and redirected it off the back of my stick. That puck had eyes.”

Alaska pulled goalie Nathaniel Pellegrino in favor of a sixth skater with 43 seconds left in the game, and that allowed Wenatchee’s Corbin Brown to tack on an empty-net goal at 19:40. Brown was getting checked to the ice, but was still able to get enough on the puck to direct in into the net.

“I don’t think that was our ‘A’ game, but we still found a way to win and I’m proud of the guys for that,” McKelvie said.

The teams meet again Saturday in Game 4, and Dowd predicts the Wild will be in for a dogfight.

“They’re going to throw the kitchen sink at us,” he said. “They’re going to come with their best game.”