The Melbourne Mustangs joining the AIHL in 2011 (at the time as the “Mustangs IHC”) kicked off a series of some of the spiciest games in the league – the Melbourne Derby. So let’s look into how the teams have performed, and who has stood out.

They have resulted in some fireworks over the years, with these games resulting in an extra 6.5 PIMs per game than the average – 42.4 PIMs in derbies, versus 35.9 across the board.

Who has had the upper hand?

Figure 1 shows how the points have been split in the four games per season since 2011 – and there is a clear divide between the years the Ice were strong, and the years after their last Cup in 2017. Up to that 2017 Cup winning season, the Ice grabbed 70 of 84 competition points on offer in derbies. Since then, however, the Mustangs have been dominant – taking 37 of 48 points – including all the points in 2023.

Coincidentally, the more recent struggles for the Ice have aligned almost perfectly with the timeframe noted Melbourne Ice fan Geoff Koop has been living in Melbourne. They say correlation isn’t causation, but the evidence doesn’t lie.

Figure 1: Share of points won by season

Overall, the Melbourne teams have played 44 regular season derbies.
• The Ice have 27 wins (4 of which came in overtime or shootouts)
• The Mustangs have 17 wins (also 4 in OT/SO).

On top of that, we have two postseason clashes. The 2014 Goodall Cup Final, where the Mustangs dispatched the Ice 6-1, and the 2017 Semi Final, where the Ice got the job done 4-2. Both times a derby was held on Finals weekend, the winner went on to lift the Cup.

Big Performers

Throughout the 44 games, there have been 12 players who have scored 20 points or more – four of which have experience at both ends of the corridor. The highest scorer, by a mile, is Matt Armstrong with 27 goals and 36 assists (he leads both of those too) for 63 points. 59 of these came with the Ice, and the last four have been in a Mustangs jersey.

Table 1: Overall highest point-scorers in Melbourne derbies

Along with Army, the ‘usual suspects’ make up the top scorers for the Ice – Baclig, Webster, Powell and Hughes filling out the top 5 positions.

Table 2: Melbourne Ice highest point scorers in derbies

On the Mustangs end, a similarly predictable story – Vadim Virjassov leading the scoring from Jamie Bourke, Pat O’Kane, Sean Jones and a fast-rising Scott Timmins – who has every chance of being the Mustangs highest goal-scorer in derbies by the end of this week.

Table 3: Melbourne Mustangs highest point scorers in derbies

Goalies

All the above is great for the guys up front who put the puck in the net, then get to ham it up for the crowd behind the glass – but what about the guys at the other end, who keep the puck out?

There have been two goalies play for both teams in derbies – and they have played more minutes in net than any other goalies in these games- Michael James and Jaden Pine-Murphy. JPM has been one of the strongest local goalies in derbies, largely behind a very well-balanced Ice team, whereas James has unfortunately had the challenge of backstopping more recent Melbourne Ice teams – and that hasn’t helped his stats.

Table 4: Goalies who played across both teams

Breaking it down by the top 5 goalies (by minutes played) per team gives us Table 5 and Table 6, with some favourite names from across the years appearing.

Table 5: Melbourne Ice top 5 goalies in derbies

Current Mustangs starter, Seb Woodlands brings a strong record into Friday night’s game as well – putting up a 0.932 save percentage across three games against the Ice.

Table 6: Melbourne Mustangs top 5 goalies in derbies

The game ahead

When the puck drops on Friday night, all of this counts for not much, but with the Ice’s hot start to 2024 and the Mustangs coming into the season as defending champs, (say it quietly) – have we got a Melbourne derby with two good teams?