Avs look to rebound against Bears

PALMER — After watching his team blow a big lead to Kenai River on Friday and suffer a lopsided loss to the Brown Bears on Saturday, Alaska Avalanche head coach Brian Huebel couldn’t help but think of a similar situation last year.

Early in the 2009-10 season, the Avs led Bismarck 3-0 in the first period but watched the Bobcats steal a 6-4 win with six goals during the final 35 minutes of the game. The following night, the Bobcats broadsided Alaska with a 4-0 victory.

Huebel and the Avs felt a similar thump Saturday night. After watching a 4-1 lead turn into a 5-4 loss on Friday, Kenai smacked the Avs with a 6-1 defeat on Saturday.

“We can’t let off the gas, that’s exactly what happened that weekend last year,” Huebel said, referring to those losses to Bismarck a year ago.

If there’s a silver lining, Alaska did follow those losses to the Bobcats with a key 4-0 win over the Wenatchee Wild, a game in which the Avs manhandled the North American Hockey League West Division champs. The Avs will be looking for a similar rebound Thursday as Alaska opens a three-game set against the Brown Bears at the Soldotna Sports Center.

But to do that, Huebel knows the Avs will have to quickly get away from what hurt them during the Brown Bears’ two-game sweep at the Palmer Ice Arena over the weekend.

“From the third period on (Friday), we played on our heels,” Huebel said. “We gave them our blue line.”

Despite being outshot by the Avs each night, Kenai River took advantage of a few opportunities and used a few odd-man rushes to score four unanswered goals on Friday and six more on Saturday.

“Credit Kenai, regardless of how they got their goals, they took advantage of opportunities,” Huebel said.

Alaska built a 4-1 lead on Friday, behind a pair of Jake Barber goals and scores from Andy Pearson and Brandon Brossoit. Pearson netted power-play goals on both nights.

The Avs dominated the season series last year, skating to a 17-1-0 game in 18 meetings with the Brown Bears. But with the sweep, Kenai is 3-1-0 against Alaska this year. Kenai River has never had more than four wins over Alaska in a season in its three-year history.

The team’s will enter the three-game set in third and fourth places in the NAHL West. Kenai River (10-8-2) sits in third with 22 points in the standings, while Alaska (9-9-0, 18 points) is in fourth. Wenatchee (12-6-0) and Fairbanks (11-6-2) are tied in first place with 24 points.

Contact Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com. Follow him at Twitter at twitter.com/matsu_sports.