High drama in Wilderness sweep

Two gutsy efforts helped the Minnesota Wilderness complete a home sweep of the Anchorage Wolverines in the first 2025 series for both teams.

Two second period goals Friday helped push Minnesota (16-13-3) over the top for a 3-2 victory. On Saturday, Jakeb Lynch, with 19 seconds left in overtime, lifted the Wilderness to a 6-5 win.

Through the weekend, the Wilderness trailed for only 19 seconds, despite Anchorage (20-8-3) finishing with more shots on goal in both games.

The sweep extends the Wilderness’ season-long winning streak to seven games. Minnesota now goes on the road for its next three contests, beginning with a Thursday/Friday series in Eagle River versus the Wisconsin Windigo.

After missing 11 games due to illness, Logan Nagle returned to the Wilderness lineup Friday in dramatic fashion. The veteran forward scored what ended up being the winning goal in the second period. Nagle pounced on a rebound of a Nate Murray shot at the 7:58 mark to score his second goal of the season, which then gave Minnesota a 3-1 lead.

Anchorage added a third period power-play goal from Toby Carlson to get a little closer. The Wolverines finished the game with a 38-37 shot advantage and put 20 shots on netminder Nick Erickson in the second period alone.

Six Wilderness players scored to lead the Wilderness to victory in the series finale Saturday.

Much like Friday, the Wilderness built a multi-goal lead and then faced an Anchorage surge over the final two periods.

Both teams traded goals over the game’s first 3:10 with Noah Dziver scoring his eighth for Minnesota and Daniel Bagnole answering for Anchorage just 32 seconds later.

The Wilderness added two more before the opening frame concluded, beginning with Brady Zugec’s fifth of the season followed by a breakaway tally from Ferry Netusil for his team-leading 18th goal.

Netusil then helped set up Nate Murray light the lamp for the 11th time in the campaign at 6:15 of the 2nd period to give Minnesota a 4-1 advantage.

That seemed to light a fire under Anchorage, as the Wolverines went on to outshoot the Wilderness 36-16 over the final two periods and managed to tie the contest by the middle of the third period.

Anchorage’s comeback began when Brock Devlin notched a power-play goal with 1:36 left in the second period, and it continued when Romulus Riego De Dios sailed the puck over the shoulder of Nick Erickson at 4:09 of the third period to make the score 4-3.

A video replay challenge would end up wiping out one Wolverine tally that officials ruled entered the net through a gap under the bottom rim of the net. That failed to faze the Wolverines as Ian Christian scored less than 10 seconds later to tie the game at 4.

The Wilderness came back to life and regained the lead a few minutes later. Luke Margenau sniped one past Wolverine netminder William Lubimov at the tail end of a power play for his fourth of the season with 5:17 left in the final period.

The Wolverines would respond one more time and would end up tying the game in one of the most unusual ways ever seen in a hockey game. With the Anchorage goaltender pulled for an extra attacker, Margenau had the puck in the Wilderness zone behind the extended goal line to the right of the Minnesota goal. Margenau was looking to clear the puck out of Minnesota’s defensive end and was being challenged by Anchorage forward Toby Carlson. Carlson ended up blocking Margenau’s clearing attempt as the puck deflected off of Carlson’s face and into the Wilderness net.

That goal tied the game at 5 with 1:36 left. Carlson left the game to tend to injuries suffered from blocking the shot.

The Wilderness then dominated the 3-on-3 overtime, outshooting Anchorage, 5-1. Jakeb Lynch notched the game-winner with a wrist shot from just above the top of the right face-off circle near the slot and was assisted by Murray and Joey Sylvester. It gives Lynch 11 goals on the season and five in his last four games.

The Wolverines outshot Minnesota 48-32.

Erickson was the winning goaltender for the seventh straight game, making 38 saves. Lubimov took the loss with 26 stops.