Perched on the playoff bubble in the 10-team Western Collegiate Hockey Association, where only the top eight finishers make the playoffs, eighth-place UAA is positioned to control its fate.
Of the teams sitting in sixth place through 10th place – the order is Bemidji State, Lake Superior State, UAA, UAF and Alabama-Huntsville – UAA holds several advantages entering this weekend's pivotal home series against Lake Superior State.
Of the bottom-five teams, UAA is one of three clubs that has four of its six remaining games at home – Bemidji State and UAF are the others.
Of the bottom-five teams, only UAA has two series remaining against fellow bottom-five teams.
Of the bottom-five teams, the league winning percentage of UAA's remaining opponents is the lowest at .478.
And the Seawolves, who last season finished last and missed the playoffs, have a travel schedule as easy as any team in the bottom five. Their only remaining road series is the regular season-ending Governor's Cup series against UAF in Fairbanks.
"The good thing is it's all in our hands, and that's definitely how you want it,'' said UAA coach Matt Thomas. "Last year, we needed to perform and to get help, and we didn't perform.
"We're in as good a situation as you're going to find in this scenario.''
Following the Lake Superior State series, UAA entertains Minnesota State, and then travels to play UAF to end the season.
The Seawolves are coming off an idle weekend, which served as some healing time, particularly for senior captain Austin Sevalrud, a defenseman. Sevalrud missed the past six games with an upper-body injury but said he's been back skating for two weeks now. He pronounced himself day-to-day at Thursday's practice. Thomas said he's hopeful his captain can play against the Lakers.
While Sevalrud's status is uncertain, the significance of the series against Lake Superior State is not. The games against the Lakers, and UAA's season-ending games against UAF, are essentially four-point games with the potential to dramatically alter the bottom half of the standings.
"You can't over-hype how important this is,'' Sevalrud said. "It could be our season, really.
"It's essentially a playoff mind-set. We talked about it this week. Everyone is aware of our situation.''
Seawolves notes
The Seawolves and Lakers split a series in Michigan a month ago – Lake Superior took the opener 4-2 with three third-period goals, including an empty-netter, and UAA won the finale 3-1.
UAA's win at Lake Superior started the Lakers' six-game losing streak, which they halted Saturday with a 3-0 home win over Bemidji State.
UAA senior center Blake Tatchell needs one more point to become the 23rd player in Seawolves history to reach 100 career points. He owns 30-69—99 totals in 136 career games. Tatchell also is four assists shy of tying for No. 10 all-time in assists.
The WCHA on Thursday announced that five UAA players – Tatchell, Sevalrud, senior defenseman Blake Leask, sophomore winger Tad Kozun and sophomore goaltender Olivier Mantha – are WCHA Scholar-Athletes. To qualify, a player must have at least one year in residence at his school and have a grade-point average of 3.5 or better in the previous two semesters, or an overall GPA of 3.5 or higher.
Reach Doyle Woody at dwoody@alaskadispatch.com, check out his blog at adn.com/hockeyblog and follow him on Twitter at @JaromirBlagr
Lake Superior State
10-18-4, 7-11-4 WCHA
at
UAA
10-15-3, 7-13-2 WCHA
Friday and Saturday, Sullivan Arena, 7:07 p.m.
TV: Live, GCI Channel 1 and 999 (HD)