The Rebels will conclude their Alaskan trip this weekend when they travel to Fairbanks to play two games against the Ice Dogs. These two teams met three weeks ago at IceWorks when the Rebels swept the defending North American Hockey League champions by the scores of 4 – 0 and 5 – 2. Gianluca Esteves (2 goals and 1 assist) and Evgeny Yakovlev (3 assists) each had three points. Jack Leavy was in the nets for both games turning aside 50 of the 52 shots he faced. Each team went 0 -4 on the power play.
Ice Dogs Overview
The Ice Dogs currently are in fifth place in the Midwest Division. They have a 14-21-2-1 record for 31 points, 32 behind division leader Janesville but only three behind fourth place Coulee Region (although Coulee Region has three games in hand). Fairbanks has won four of its past ten games and has won their last three consecutive games by sweeping the Northeast Generals. The Ice Dogs have scored the third least amount of goals in the league (98) and have allowed 123 (fourteenth most in the league).
The Ice Dogs are led by Hampus Eriksson’s 26 points (7 goals and 19 assists). He is followed by Hunter Wendt’s 20 points (9 goals and 11 assists) and Ryan Kero (7 goals and 11 assists) and Aaron McPheters’ (3 goals and 15 assists) 18 points. Four players have scored nine goals each. Cayden Cahill and Daniel Haider each have three game winning goals.
Defenseman Marc Sullivan has the most penalty minutes on the team with 82 while forward Grayson Gavin has the best +/- ratio with a +4. The Ice Dogs are ranked thirteenth in the league on the power play scoring on 18.6% of their chances while they are sixth in the league on the penalty kill for preventing their opponents from scoring 84.2% of the time.
The goaltending tandem of C.J. Boothe and Joshua Sarlo has a combined 2.77 goals against average and .886 save percentage. Boothe has one shutout.
Rebels Overview
The Rebels enter the weekend with a 30-6-1 record for 61 points. They lead the East Division by nine points over second place Johnstown. They have won eight of their last 10 games, and they are coming off of a 3 – 2 win over the Kenai River Brown Bears. The Rebels have scored 133 goals on the season (fourth highest in the league) and they have allowed 59 (least amount allowed in the league).
Andrew Bellant is the team’s top point producer with 35 (19 goals and 16 assists). He is followed by Dom Garica’s 34 points (10 goals and 24 assists) and Brennan Kapcheck’s (13 goals and 20 assists) 33 points. Bellant leads the team with 19 goals and penalty minutes (105). Bellant, Kapcheck and Evgeny Yakovlev each have four game winning goals. Kapcheck leads the league with the best +/- ratio of +31.
The Rebels are ninth in league on the power play scoring 20.1% of the time while they are top in the league on the penalty kill preventing their opponents from scoring 88.4%.
The goaltending tandem of Mareks Mitens and Leavy has a combined 1.46 goals against average and .938 save percentage with thirteen shutouts, most in the league.
