Canberra Brave Mid-Season Report Card

Canberra Brave mid-season report card – C- (Getting by, but not by much)

After coming within a goal of back-to-back Cups in 2023, it is fair to say that the Brave would not have expected the first half of the 2024 AIHL season to go the way it has. Player unavailability, through national team representation, import delays and other factors have made overcoming a heavily front-loaded schedule difficult to overcome. A club-record nine game losing streak had left a mountain to climb, but the saving grace is the relatively low level of points in the Rurak Conference.

With four wins in the last five games, and still with at least one import slot to be filled, there are signs things are starting to turn for the Brave.

What happened?

After finishing the 2023 season on top of the ladder, and making it to the Goodall Cup Final, to be one win from the first 10 games in 2024 was a bit of a shock, and ultimately it comes down to scoring. With their player availability struggles, the Brave have scored almost 3.3 goals per game less in 2024 – moving from 6.5 goals per game in 2023 to 3.3 in 2024.

This also stands out on the powerplay as well, with the success on the man-advantage falling from 23.7% to 14.5% – which has had the added impact of making teams unafraid to take penalties against the Brave – especially early this season.

The silver lining to the early season struggles has been the greater opportunity for some other players, with greater responsibility taken by players such as Charlie York, new Brave players in Jacob Carey, Tommy Steven and Bodhi Matthew and especially Alex Tetreault in net.

Current standings

The Brave are sitting 3^rd in the Rurak Conference, and 7^th overall after their slow start to the season. The relative struggles of teams in their conference have helped to keep the door wide open to the post-season for not just the Brave, but most of the Rurak conference.

Key performers so far

Kai Miettinen

There are some players on the Brave that have a more statistically-impressive first half of the 2024 season, but as captain, Miettinen has led from the front. Some weekends he has carried a threadbare offensive unit, and scored important goals to wrestle some momentum for the Brave. A 2-game suspension recently was probably not according to plan, but so far this season has been a strong one from the man with the C.

Something that stands out is that across three games against in-conference rivals, the Northstars, all of which Newcastle ultimately ended up winning fairly comfortably, the Brave’s top goal scorer is Miettinen. These games have more weight due to the league structure and putting up tallies in them show his ability to grasp the big moments when his team needs him to step up.

Austin Cangelosi

Since joining the team, he has shown why there was such hype around his signing. He has 19 points in 8 games in a team that has been fairly low-scoring, with some great highlight-reel plays as well. Cangelosi’s speed and handling keeps him as a constant threat for opposing defences, and his growing chemistry with Jake Ratcliffe is a big part of the Brave’s fortunes improving.

Cangelosi’s presence on the Brave powerplay has also helped turn around the situation on special teams a bit, shown most dramatically in two powerplay goals in less than 20 seconds of powerplay time against the Adrenaline on the Sunday game.

Alex Tetreault

With his goaltending partner Aleksi Toivonen away with the national team, and picking up an injury, Tetreault owned the net for the Brave for 14 of the first 16 games for the Brave. Given how undermanned the team in front of him has been, putting up a save percentage above 0.890 shows how strong he has been.

Beyond the numbers, the saves Tetreault has been able to pull off have kept the Brave in games, and given them every chance – even when sometimes they didn’t own the play. The confidence this has given the team in front of him is plain to see, and the goaltending tandem at the Brave will be a strength for the rest of the season.

Best win so far

Against the Sydney Bears on June 1^st in Canberra, 5 – 3.  

Coming up against a league-leading Bears team, the Brave showed strength from the opening face-off. No doubt the Brave went into this game as underdogs, but controlled most of the game from the jump, backed ably by a great performance in Aleksi Toivonen’s first game back, they survived a late-game scare from the Bears to take away all 3 points for the first time from a team in a finals-bound position.

Expectations for the remainder of the season

The Brave will be looking to come home with a bit of a wet sail – especially if they can play some games with three or four imports in the lineup. They will hope they can challenge Newcastle for the top spot in the conference, but that gap might be too big – especially with the two games in hand the Northstars have.  

Key for the Brave will be that 9 of the 14 remaining games in their regular season are against other Rurak Conference teams – so the Brave hold their destiny in their own hands. Realistically, they will be have an eye on second in the conference, and if Newcastle slip up, to be breathing down their neck.

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