The final team to qualify for the Hungry Jacks AIHL Finals, the Brisbane Lightning have a mountain to climb to raise their first Goodall Cup – especially without their star goaltender, Curtis Meger, in the first game of the weekend.   

2024 Record

Overall record (9 W – 4 OTW – 1 OTL – 16 L) (0.400 PCT)

• Record against finals-bound teams (4 W – 2 OTW – 0 OTL – 11 L)

Story of the season: Best of the rest in the Rurak

Figure 1: Brisbane Lightning Percentage – overall, and against Finals-bound teams.

The Lightning have the weakest record of any of the six finalists, but this doesn’t fall too far when games against the other five are considered. The reality is, though, they will be big underdogs this weekend.

Figure 2: Brisbane Lightning goal scoring – versus league average, overall and against finalists.

One bright spot here is that Brisbane score more goals against finalists than they do overall – just. The major concern is that they average less than three goals per game – which just isn’t enough in the AIHL. Unfortunately against finalists, the defensive side struggles too – with the PK falling to 65.8% against other finalists (see below).

Figure 3: Brisbane Lightning special teams performance

Strengths

Goaltending – Curtis Meger has led all finals teams in save percentage over the past ten games with 0.929. With him missing the Preliminary Final through suspension, that is a huge loss for the Lightning, and one they will have real difficulty covering.

Mitch Dyck – the big, puck-moving defenseman has been critical to the Lightning this season, and few threatening rushes don’t come through him. He is the key to the Lightning, both sides of the puck, and leads the team from the blue line.

Powerplay against finals teams – a weird quirk that the Lightning PP performs better against the 5 other finals teams than overall – at 22.2% versus 18.9%. Though this may be inflated by the early-season double header against a weaker Brave lineup, it is still a point of strength.

Weaknesses

Scoring – The fundamental weakness all season. The Lightning score only 2.8 goals per game, better than only the Adrenaline (2.3 goals per game) and Rhinos (2.7 goals per game).

Penalty Kill – Brisbane have the lowest PK in the league with only 73.3% of penalties successfully seen off. As we saw above, this gets even worse against the best teams. A small saving grace is it runs at 81.4% on the road.

When they win

Special teams stay strong (PP rises to 25.4%, PK to 84.9%) and they match teams for pressure on the net. In losses, the Lightning take almost 15 shots on net less than their opponents – in wins this breaks even.

Player to watch

Batu Gendunov. Big Batu has been huge for the Lightning this season, pun intended. He has come up with important goals at critical moments, and he will need to come up clutch again on Friday for the Lightning to have a chance.

Under the radar: Sam Hodic is a player that always runs at 110% energy when on the ice, and Finals back in his old stomping ground might just be the stage for him.    

Weird stat

Mitch Dyck might be the most important defenseman in the AIHL. He has a point on 41.2% of Lightning goals (only blueliner above 35% of his team’s goals) and is one of only five D-men to average over 1.0 primary points (goals and primary assists) per game – and two of those last played in May!

Top 10 scorers

Goalies

Projected lineup