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FAIRBANKS — The Alaska Nanooks ranked second among the 58 NCAA Division I hockey teams last season for defense, and they’re atop the rankings after the first weekend of the 2009-10 regular season.

So it doesn’t take a master’s degree to guess an emphasis of this week’s practices for the second annual Brice Alaska Goal Rush at the Carlson Center today and Saturday.

“The idea is to not only be sound and take away scoring opportunities, but to get more puck possession for our team,” Nanooks head coach Dallas Ferguson said after Thursday morning’s practice at the Carlson Center.

The Nanooks, 2-0-0 and ranked 17th in the latest USCHO.com/CBS College Sports Poll, face the Robert Morris Colonials of College Hockey America at 7:35 p.m. today and meet the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Engineers at 6:35 p.m. Saturday.

The Nanooks allowed 1.74 goals per game last season, a hair behind the nation-leading 1.73 of Central Collegiate Hockey Association rival Notre Dame.

Alaska’s national-best average this season was 0.50 after its second straight title run through the Kendall Hockey Classic at Sullivan Arena in Anchorage. The Nanooks stunned then No. 3-ranked Michigan in Friday’s tournament opener and raised the trophy after a 6-1 win over Mercyhurst on Saturday, sparked by two goals and an assist from senior center Dion Knelsen.

Sophomore goaltender Scott Greenham — awarded the Classic’s most outstanding player — stopped 43 of 44 shots and the Nanooks were aided by quick transition by their defensemen. Sophomore defenseman Joe Sova said a team effort led to another successful appearance in the tournament.

“There’s not one thing that you can say that we did that was the key to it,” said Sova, who scored the game-winner against Michigan. “Our whole team played well in the D-zone, especially in the third period. We wanted to win so bad that we were doing everything — blocking shots, getting the puck out of the zone, moving pucks quickly and getting pucks back quickly.”

However, there’s always room for improvement, particularly for a Nanooks squad which saw intrastate rival Alaska Anchorage hoist the Goal Rush trophy in the inaugural tournament last year. The Nanooks opened with a 5-0 win over Mercyhurst and then lost 2-0 to Maine, while UAA won 3-1 over Maine and 6-4 over Mercyhurst.

“It’s never good letting somebody else take the trophy out of your own rink,” said junior center and team captain Derek Klassen, who carried the Kendall trophy during the trip back to Fairbanks on Saturday.

Ferguson watched video of last weekend’s tournament and one thing he noticed is that the Nanooks need to be stingier in front of their net.

“We’d kind of get caught watching the puck a little bit,” he said. “We’ve obviously got to be better on positioning when shots are coming to the net and also get into position to block more shots.

“There’s just a couple of things, and I wouldn’t say it was really bad; but if you look at where we’re at this time of the season, I expect to be working some things out, obviously.”

One of those things is winning the Goal Rush for the first time.

Contact staff writer Danny Martin at 459-7586.