The Fairbanks Ice Dogs’ best season since 2021-22 came to an unsavory end Friday against an in-state rival. Here are four statistics that help define the Ice Dogs’ 2024-25 campaign.
Although they won an identical number of games (37), the Ice Dogs finished this season with an even better win percentage than they had the last time they made the NAHL playoffs (2022). They finished 37-16-3-3 for a .678 win percentage in 2024-25, compared to 37-20-1-2 for a .642 win percentage in 2021-22.
They won close to twice as many games as they did in 2023-24 despite losing goalie Tyler Krivtsov, who started 19 games for the University of Alaska Anchorage this winter.
Speaking of goalies, it wasn’t as if the Ice Dogs’ defense fell apart in their first round playoff loss. They allowed an average of three goals between those three games, up from their regular season average of 2.59, which was best in the NAHL Midwest Division.
Their offense was the larger issue, totaling just four goals between three postseason games, but one notable development was Mason McElroy starting all three playoff games at goaltender after splitting most of the regular season series with Charlie Menard.
Menard had a lower goals against average of 2.15, a higher save percentage of .923 and three shutouts compared to zero for McElroy. However, of the eight games in which Menard finished with a save percentage below .900 (he started 29 games), five came in his final six games.
One point of pride that the Ice Dogs can look back on this season for, in addition to making the playoffs for the first time in three years, is winning the Club 49 Cup over the Anchorage Wolverines (who they went 7-5 against in the regular season) and the Kenai River Brown Bears (who they were 8-4 against).
The Ice Dogs won their final three games in their regular season series against both the Wolverines and the Brown Bears. During the 2023-24 season, the Ice Dogs went 4-8 against the Wolverines but also won each of their last three matchups against Anchorage. Fairbanks went 11-13 against in-state foes in both 2023-24 and 2022-23.
That made this year’s 15-9 mark the Ice Dogs’ best record against in-state foes since going 16-8 in 2021-22, when they started 5-0 against other Alaska teams and won nine of their first 10 in-state matchups.
One clear area of improvement for an otherwise-decent special teams unit is for the Ice Dogs to convert more on their power play opportunities. Their 16.38% conversion rate ranked 24th in the league out of 35 NAHL teams this season. That mark was an almost-identical 16.67% in their three playoff games.
Contact Gavin Struve at gstruve@newsminer.com or 907-459-7544
