In spite of a 7-3 loss to Canberra Brave on Saturday night, the Newcastle Northstars came out fighting on Sunday to win 3-2 in a close battle against Brisbane Lightning at home in the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL).

“At this point in the season, winning is really the only thing that matters,” began Northstars Head Coach Kevin Noble, “you have to find a way to win, and in saying that, our winning recipe has been special teams. Our powerplay gets the job done, and our penalty kill was really good again [tonight].”

A powerplay goal from Beau Taylor opened the scoring for the home team. However, Batu Gendenov would find the back of the net for Brisbane, scoring in the last minute of the period; the first intermission saw the game tied at 1-1.

Lightning played one of their best games in Newcastle and this sentiment was shared by Assistant Captain Mitch Dyke, “I think this was probably our closest game to playing a full 60 minutes, sticking to our systems, and I mentioned this last week to you.”

“Today we had a good game against a good team,” continued Dyck, “unfortunately we couldn’t bury a couple of our chances and they capitalised on more of theirs.”

Northstars came out fighting, “We won a lot of wall and net front battles,” continued Noble, “we made a lot of strong plays and limited turnover, and those things add up to winning. We need to get a bit more going depth-wise offensively, and it’s obviously hurting us right now, as we’re not generating as much as we would like, five on five.”

“The difference [compared to last night in Canberra] is our guys that we rely on to carry the load got timely goals and timely plays, whether on the powerplay or penalty kill. Tonight we got timely saves, with Mitzy [Mitsuaki Inoue] making some big saves when we needed it tonight.”

Francis Drolet scored the second goal of the game for the Northstars, another powerplay goal, giving the home team a 2-1 lead in the second intermission.

“I think this weekend, we’re really seeing buy-in and compete from guys who are finding their roles, and I think the guys in the room right now are doing a really good job for us,” shared Noble.

Kyler Matthews has become a staple in the back line, both defensively and creating offensive opportunities. He struck again for Newcastle, extending the lead to 3-1 for the home team.

“We’ve got to find a way, tired or not, we’ve got to find ways to get out of the gate quickly. We were fortunate tonight, and we were strong structurally limiting turnovers and getting big saves when we needed it,” shared Noble.

Batu Gendunov capitalised on a powerplay, closing the gap for the Lightning with his second goal of the night with 4:15 remaining in the game.

Newcastle would battle to the end, keeping their lead to the thrill of a sold-out crowd.

“Obviously, it was a very frustrating weekend, not getting any points in such a tight race, but as the weekend progressed, we got better. We ended with a really good game here against the Northstars, and we’ll carry that into our practices next week and our games,” finished Dyck.

Head Coach Terry Kiliwnik shared the same thoughts, “We did a lot better defensively against the Northstars than we did the last time we were here, it was a different story. We were pretty tight on them, with the guys working hard and winning battles.”

“Defensively they were doing the things we were asking them to do,” continued Kiliwnik, “they contained a lot of their [Northstars] big boys like Drolet and [Daniel] Berno, so it was good to see. Batu [Gendunov] is one of our key guys and defensively he’s got a big reach and is a big man who plays physical.”

“Whenever you’ve got a goalie who can play like Curtis [Meger], he makes all the saves you expect him to make, and then he makes some that he’s not expected to make,” shared Kiliwnik.

Newcastle will travel to Adelaide next weekend for a doubleheader on the 6th and 7th of July, while Brisbane will welcome the Brave to Boondall.

These intra-conference matchups for all four teams could see the Brave and Northstars continue to secure their position in the Rurak Conference.