The Janesville Ice Arena in Janesville, Wisconsin, wasn’t kind to them, as they lost 6-2 to the Midwest Division-leading Janesville Jets in Saturday night’s finale of the two-game North American Hockey League series.

The Ice Dogs, in fourth place in the Midwest at 7-7-2-1 for 17 points in the standings, suffered a 3-2 setback Friday night against the Jets (12-4-0-1 for 25 points).

“Challenging game for the Ice Dogs,” Stewart wrote in a text to the News-Miner. “Janesville appears to be the top team in the division at this point.

“Excited to get back to Fairbanks and prepare for our home schedule,” Stewart added.

The Ice Dogs are on their home ice for the next two weeks, starting with a divisional series against the fifth-place Springfield (Illinois) Jr. Blues at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the Big Dipper. Janesville visits at the same times Nov. 18 and 19.

Hunter Wendt and Daniel Haider provided Fairbanks’ scoring in Janesville on Saturday night.

Wendt, with his fourth goal in his first season with the Ice Dogs, made it 1-0 with Haider’s help during a power play at 1:21 into the first period. 

The Ice Dogs trailed 5-1 when Haider buried a power-play goal at 10:58 of the third period. Haider’s seventh goal and 13th point of the season was set up by Benton Maass and Hampus Eriksson.

Coincidentally, both of Fairbanks goals Friday occurred with the man advantage.

Adrian Holesinsky had a goal and two assists for Janesville and Jakov Novak scored twice.

Holesinsky made it 2-1 with the game-winner with 37 seconds left in the first period. Chris Dodero and Keegan Miller had the assists.

Holesinky and Michael Maloney helped on Novak’s power-play tally at 8:50 of the second period and Holesinsky and Dodero set up Maloney’s power-play deposit at 16:16 of the second.

Cullen Munson and Peter Bates each had a goal and assist and Miller finished with two helpers. Janesville got individual assists from Ben Schmidling and LordAnthony Grissom. 

Ice Dogs goaltender Joshua Sarlo registered 25 saves and Jets counterpart Jacob Barczewski finished with 17.

Contact sports editor Danny Martin at 459-7586. Follow him on Twitter: @newsminersports.