The second game of the Australian Ice Hockey League (AIHL) Finals presented by Hungry Jack’s was played on Friday night between the Canberra Brave and Perth Thunder at O’Brien Icehouse, Melbourne. In a replay of last year’s semi-final, the Brave took the win in a tight 2-1 contest.
Canberra finished second in the Rurak Conference while the Thunder finished third in the Hellyer Conference. In the regular season, the Thunder defeated the Brave in the season series with two regulation wins and an overtime win. However, two of these games were early in the season with both teams heavily affected by Australian team duties and a lack of imports at the time.
Prior to the start of this game, Sydney Ice Dogs coach Jason Kvisle was selected by team and player representatives as Coach Of The Year.
The first five minutes were very physical with both teams throwing their bodies around with limited quality shots at either end.
Bayley Kubara was loitering around the goal crease in front of Thunder goaltender Leo Bertein. Just like Melbourne Ice’s Joey Hughes in the previous game, Kubara was allowed too much time and space in front of the goaltender with a similar result for Canberra’s first goal with 15.37 remaining in period one.
At the other end of the ice, Brave goaltender Aleksi Toivonen was barely challenged in the first period. There was the occasional good shot including a three on one opportunity, however, most of the pucks fired in his direction were from distance.
A fairly even period with shots on goal favouring Perth 18-14 after 20 minutes of action. The first period of action did not include any visits to the penalty boxes despite several big hits and extra curricular activities.
For much of the second period, it was a good old fashioned arm wrestle and a goalie battle. Despite the range of weapons at both ends of the ice, both nets stayed clean until Jeremiah Addison finally scored a powerplay goal for the Thunder with a laser from the point with 4.19 remaining in the second period.
Robert Haselhurst provided the perfect screen as the net front presence on Addison’s shot. It was enough to take Toivonen’s eyes away to tie the game 1-1.
In his return for the Thunder, Jones was trying hard to make an impact on the game including a running battle with Canberra’s Matt Clark. By the end of 2 periods, Perth were overshooting the Brave 29-22 but it was still anybody’s game at that point.
Canberra scored a powerplay goal with 12.39 remaining in the third period. Austin Cangelosi won the attacking zone face off to the left hand side of Bertein to start the powerplay.
Casey Kubara delivered the puck to Matt Clark on the blue line who rocketed the puck past the screen which included Thunder defender Alastair Punler and faceoff winner Cangelosi. Powerplay converted into a powerplay goal in four seconds!
Perth were very competitive in the last few minutes with the game in the balance until the final seconds. There were several close calls with Jones, Jamie Woodman, Yu Hikosaka, Ben Berard and Natan Vertes all featuring heavily.
Bertein was pulled for the extra attacker for the last 1 minute and 23 seconds however the Brave’s defence, including a spectacular Nick Christensen goal line clearance, and Toivonen were too strong in the end, winning 2-1. Final shots on goal favoured Perth 41-29 while each team converted one of three powerplays into goals.
After the game, Perth Thunder General Manager Andrew Cox spoke with Hockey Hype Australia. “This season I think we had a lot of pieces there to be able to go further and go deeper than what we have. We had high expectations going into the season and we didn’t succeed in what we were trying to do. Which is obviously disappointing.”
Looking forward to the future, Cox continued. “But we’ve got a plan in place and we’re just going to continue to push with that. It’s never a one season plan, it’s a multi-year thing, so we’re going to continue to push and we’ll come back next year stronger and make sure
we get the formula right and hopefully get across the line.”
Meanwhile, Bayley Kubara spoke about the toughness of the game he had just finished and Saturday’s game against the Sydney Bears. “I think Perth was always going to be a tough team. They’re a great team. It was a really close game, so to get that first game out of the way, it’s massive. Yeah, just general confidence, obviously, moving on to another tough team. We always knew it was going to be hard with the schedule we had, so I think everyone’s feeling good and ready for the game tomorrow.”
Scoring the first goal, he was quick to deflect attention away from himself and focus on his team mates. “Yeah, it’s great. I mean, I don’t want to talk about myself too much. I think that game was a big team win. It was a great pass from Matty (Matt Clark). I think everyone kind of contributed in different little ways to get the first one.”
Perth Thunder’s season ends here while Canberra Brave play the Hellyer Conference winning Sydney Bears in semi-final one on Saturday afternoon. Earlier on Friday, Melbourne Ice defeated Brisbane Lightning 5-0. On Saturday night, Ice play Rurak Conference winners Newcastle Northstars in semi-final two.
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