The battle begins

Frontiersman

WENATCHEE, Wash. — The Wenatchee Wild boast 10 wins in 14 regular-season meetings with the Alaska Avalanche, home ice advantage throughout the first round of the North American Hockey League playoffs and a home rink that draws an NAHL-high 2,700 fans per game.

But when the Avs skate into the Toyota Center in Wenatchee, Wash., tonight for the first game of the best-of-five NAHL playoff series, the Avs will work to reverse a few regular-season trends and silence about 3,000 Wenatchee fans.

“The best celebration is when we score, the whole place goes quiet,” Alaska forward Tyler Currier said by cell phone from Wenatchee on Thursday. “I like to hear that.”

The Wild did finish the regular season 10-3-1 against Alaska, but the Avs feel the season-series against their first-year foes has been more competitive than that overall record may suggest.

“We’ve played them really close all year and we expect the same thing in the playoffs,” Currier said.

These teams played in overtime in four games this season, and two of those contests were decided by a shooutout. Seven of the 14 games in the series were won by just one goal.

“We think it’s going to be tight,” Alaska head coach Dave Boitz said via cell phone, following a team practice in Wenatchee on Thursday afternoon.

While the Avs and Wild are plenty familiar with each other — the teams have battled through a spirited regular-season series which has featured more than 600 combined penalty minutes in just 14 games — both teams are entering new territory as they skate into the postseason.

The Avs are in the playoffs for just the second time in the four-year history of the franchise and only two Alaska players — defenseman Beau Braun and goalie Nate Pellegrino — have played on an NAHL playoff team.

Braun played in just one playoff game as a member of the North Iowa Huskies last season, while Pellegrino didn’t see any playoff action between the pipes during his stay in Alpena last year.

So in total, Alaska has just one game of playoff experience and about 23 players skating in the postseason for the first time.

Currier, an Anchorage native who is in his third season with the Avs, said he and his teammates have been eager to have the chance to skate in the playoffs.

“it’s a big deal for us,” Currier said. “We’re all pretty excited. The main goal is always the playoffs.”

As the Avs prepare for their fist playoff game, Currier said a key has been just trying to keep the same routine.

“We’re trying to keep what we usually do,” Currier said. “There’s more focus. It’s not just another regular season game.”

Luckily for the Avs, they’re facing a Wenatchee team with basically no league playoff experience. The first-year franchise has a roster made up predominately of first-year NAHL players.

“They’re pretty much in the same boat,” Boitz said.

Boitz, a hockey veteran, who has taken two other teams to the NAHL postseason, said he’s stressing to his players to keep it simple and not to forget that this is a five-game series.

“We’ve got to do all the little things,” Boitz said. “We’ve got to make sure we don’t cut any corners. It’s a five-game series so we’ve got a lot of hockey to play no matter what happens Friday night.”

While most NAHL teams will host at least a piece of a first-round series, the league ruled well before the end of the season that Wenatchee would host all five games if the Wild earned the second seed in the West Division. The league cited travel costs as the reason for the move. If Alaska finished in second place, the Avs would have hosted Wenatchee in a best-of-five set.

The series begins tonight and Saturday at the Toyota Center and continues on April 10. The teams could play, if necessary, on April 11 and April 12.

Ultimately the Avs are working toward earning chance to play in the 49th state again this season. With a series win over Wenatchee, Alaska would move on to play either Fairbanks or Kenai River in the division championships.

“That’s what we’re looking to,” Currier said. “Another series at home.”

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