“In a playoff series, you have to play one game at a time,” Nieto said after the win that gave the Ice Dogs a 2-1 lead in the best-of-five series.

“You can’t dwell on the past,” Nieto continued. “All you can do is look forward to the next game and I think we did a good job of forgetting Friday and forgetting yesterday and coming out strong today and getting a big win.”

The Chill opened the series with a 6-1 win on Friday night at the Big Dipper before the Ice Dogs took Game 2 by the same 6-1 score on Saturday night.

“Friday wasn’t how we wanted to come out,” Nieto said. “We knew that to win a game, we were going to have to keep our goals against low. Our offense is pretty good at putting up a lot of points, so we just tried to forget it and come back and play the style we know how to play.”

Nieto, who had six shutouts during the regular season, made 11 saves while allowing four goals in the Game 1 loss before making 27 saves

in Game 2.

“We really tightened up after that first game,” Ice Dogs forward Reggie Lutz said. “It was kind of a wake-up call.”

“After that first night, we were like, we can’t be doing this. We can’t be leaving our goalie out to dry,” Lutz added. “(Head coach Trevor Stewart) is definitely harping on us to start thinking about our d zone.”

Game 4 is scheduled for Friday in La Crosse, Wisconsin. If necessary, a Game 5 will be played the following night.

“We have to keep our same mentality, our same aggressive play,” Nieto said. “I thought we did a good job competing and winning all the little battles. So we just have to go down there, steal a game and win the series.”

When the Chill did get through the Ice Dogs defense on Sunday, Nieto was there to keep Coulee Region off the board. Nieto, a native of Yorba Linda, California, twice stopped Chill breakaways.

“We’re playing great defense the last two games,” Nieto said. “We’re all out to win. We’re going to do whatever to takes to bring a championship here.”

Lutz scored two of the Ice Dogs’ three goals on Sunday to back Nieto. Lutz scored his first of the game at 15:03 of the first period, beating Chill goalie Matiss Kivlenieks with a wrist shot over his stick-side shoulder.

Lutz, a native of Elk River, Minnesota, scored his second of the game at 10:28 of the third period, tapping in a loose puck in the crease to finish off a 3-on-2 rush.

“I think just going to net hard and we finally figured out this goalie,” Lutz said. “He’s pretty good on the glove side and we know that. My first goal, I went blocker side and got a little lucky there.”

Logan Coomes opened the scoring for the Ice Dogs at 8:06 of the opening period with a power-

play tally. Coomes redirected a shot from Josef Ingman past Kivlenieks, who finished with 34 saves for the Chill.

Tyler Tomberlin had the secondary assist on both of Lutz’s goals.

Contact sports reporter Tim O’Donnell at 459-7583. Follow him on Twitter:

@FDNMSportsGuy