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Special teams were far from special for the Fairbanks Ice Dogs on Friday in their long awaited homecoming against the Topeka RoadRunners.

The Ice Dogs went 0-9 on the man advantage and worse yet allowed a shorthanded goal and two power play scores in a 4-1 defeat to Topeka, the team that kept them out of the North American Hockey League semifinals a year ago.

“You gotta win the special teams war every night. Whatever team does that usually comes out on top,” Ice Dogs captain Andrew McCabe said.

In the home opener at the Big Dipper Ice Arena, the youthful Ice Dogs (now 2-4-1) scored the only 5-on-5 goal of the night midway through the first period, as newly acquired Michael Juola converted a feed from Austin Block by beating Topeka goalie Lyle Rocker top shelf.

That was just the 11th goal allowed in seven games for the undefeated RoadRunners and it proved to be the only breakthrough on the night for the Ice Dogs.

“Their defense is very good,” first year Ice Dogs coach Josh Hauge said. “They have 18 guys that played in the league last year and that’s what you’re going to get when you have so many veterans.”

Less than four minutes later, the Ice Dogs suddenly found themselves trailing, as Topeka scored twice in 34 seconds. First, on a 4-on-4 situation, Ross Trousdale got past overly aggressive defenseman Jon Schreiner along the left boards and went in uncontested to deke Fairbanks goalie Phil Cook with a backhand. Then, on the power play, Andrew Blazek parked in front of the net and knocked home a pass from Jordan George.

Steve Shafer added a power-play score seven minutes into the second period and a shorthanded tally 4:50 into the third stanza for the final margin.

Fairbanks, meanwhile, had few quality scoring chances and committed 13 penalties, four of them by 6-foot-5 forward Isaiah Bennis. The worst was a high sticking major penalty and ejection after drawing blood on what appeared to be an accidental stick to the face of a Topeka player with six minutes remaining.

Four times the Ice Dogs negated their own power plays by picking up penalties of their own.

“It’s undisciplined. That’s my job as a coach to make sure we don’t do that,” Hauge said. “And we lightened up when we had the power play today and you can’t do that. ... A direct correlation of us not working hard is us taking a penalty.”

McCabe is one of a handful of returnees from the team that lost a heartbreaking NAHL South Division finals series last season to Topeka that was played entirely on the Roadrunners’ ice, much to the Ice Dogs’ chagrin. The Ice Dogs hoped for some payback on Friday but will instead get another shot tonight.

“We just gotta keep that same level of intensity throughout the whole game,” McCabe said. “We had it at times but it dropped down at times too, and that’s when we made mistakes and they capitalized.”

Hauge, who called being the new coach a “great honor” and called the team’s fans “unbelievable,” liked the Ice Dogs’ effort for the most part.

“I felt like at least we competed a little harder than we did the first six games, but it’s not the outcome we wanted,” he said.

Contact staff writer Matias Saari at 459-7591.