By: Craig Merz (Examiner.com) -

It was bad enough that Ohio State was going to be short-handed for 5 minutes early in the second period of its Central Collegiate Hockey Association game Saturday in Nationwide Arena.

The Buckeyes were seemingly in control with a 2-0 lead and were looking for more until Danny Dries received a 5-minute major for hitting from behind Buy Generic Viagra Online and a game misconduct.

Now, the Buckeyes were without one of its top penalty killers and goal leader after scoring twice plus the shootout winner the previous night against Alaska.

The Nanooks from Fairbanks scored once during the elongated power play and almost had another in the 5-on-3 they had near the end of the major infraction.

Although No. 14 Alaska still trailed by one entering the third period its penalty kill opened the final stanza with a big stop and the Nanooks proceeded to score four unanswered goals for a 5-2 victory.

“The difference was the 5-minute major and the 2-minute minor that we took,” Ohio State coach Mark Osiecki said. “You look at the first 40 minutes of that game we did a lot of good things. We played a heck of lot better tonight than we did last night.

“We did a good job killing it off but we had to spend so much energy,” he added. “Penalties killed us. We don’t have enough skill to have the opportunity killing penalties nonstop. We’re not gifted skaters that way.”

The Buckeyes (5-7-1, 2-5-1-1) rallied from two down on Friday for the win but the tables were turned in the rematch before 1,618 fans.

John Albert gave OSU the lead in the first period with a wraparound at 2:16 of the first and Alex Lippincott made it 2-0 at the 4:55 segment of the second.

“We had a good start,” Albert said. “We played two solid periods.”

Alaska (8-5-3, 5-4-3-2) got on the board at 9:54 of the middle stanza with 1:28 left on Dries’ major.

That was a huge relief after the Nanooks squandered a chance to increase a 1-0 lead on Friday with another 5-minute power play.

“It got us on the board,” Alaska coach Dallas Ferguson said. “(Friday) night the guys were a little frustrated. You look for your specialty teams to give you momentum. (Friday) night it took it from us. It was nice to get one on that.”

The Buckeyes were 0 for 6 on the power play and none was bigger than the missed opportunity at the start of the third.

“It was one of those things where we were kind of chipping away,” Ferguson said. “We got one on the power play in the second and we’re down 2-1 starting the third.

“We started the third with a penalty kill and we thought if we could kill that we could build some momentum and we’re going in the right direction.”

Alaska got the equalizer by Cody Kunyk at 5:36 of the third when he one-timed a feed by Nik Yaremchuk.

“From that point on we started to do a little bit more,” Ferguson said. “I don’t know if we needed that goal to trigger us a little bit. We got a little bit of puck luck. You need that when you score four goals in a period.”

Chad Gehon got the winner at 14:30 after he took a centering pass from Ron Meyers, who stole the puck from defenseman Chris Reed.

Meyers then scored from the slot 34 seconds later and Colton Beck capped the scoring with a minute left into an open net.

“We kind of let up in the third (Friday) and they played really well,” Meyers said. “They took it to us in the third and overtime. They played well tonight but we kept moving our feet and working hard. We didn’t change a thing the whole game, kept taking it to the net.”

Osiecki was not happy to see the game slip away.

“You can’t expect to win many hockey games if you’re killing off a 5-minute major and then 2 minutes to follow it, especially when we’re up two-zip,” he said. “Players have to be smarter than that.”

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