Finals Preview - Perth Thunder

The Thunder are coming to Finals with arguably their deepest team yet, and looking to break their Finals duck against teams other than the Northstars. Though they have been regular post-season attendees, the only wins they have against Newcastle in 2019 and 2023. The Finals Preview looks at how they can lift a maiden Goodall Cup.

2025 Record

Overall record (15W – 1OTW – 2OTL – 10L) (0.583* PCT -before point deduction)

Record against finals-bound teams (10W – 1OTW – 2OTL – 7L)

Story of the season: Is this the year the can they finally take the next step and lift the Cup?

Key stats

Figure 1: Perth Thunder Percentage – overall, and against Finals-bound teams.

Perth are the only team in the AIHL who have a stronger record against finalists than they do overall – though this is just a quirk of the points penalty they received, it does show they perform well against the best teams.

Figure 2: Perth Thunder goal scoring – versus league average, overall and against finalists.

Figure 3: Perth Thunder special teams performance.

Strengths

Scoring – Much of Perth’s strength this season has come from their scoring, with the 5.8 goals per game the second-highest in the league. Consistent and broad scoring threats from both import and local sources has built this.

Powerplay – A success rate of 32.7% across the season for the man-advantage shows how potent a threat the Thunder have been on special teams. As flagged this week by Eric Balnar, in recent times it has been even stronger – since the start of July it is running at 38.1%, so it is running very smoothly.

Goaltending (Toivonen) – Adding Aleksi Toivonen to the roster has helped strengthen Perth this year, with the netminder boasting the 3^rd-highest save percentage across the season, and in the last two months – the only goalie above 0.900 (0.909 through eight games).

Scoring spread (top 3/5) – The Thunder have increased their depth this season, and it shows in their scoring spread, with only one-third of points coming from their top three scorers (Hikosaka, Lachowicz, Kyros) – behind only the Brave. This added depth has helped manage player availability challenges as well.

Weaknesses

Penalty Kill – it’s a good thing the Thunder powerplay is so strong, because the PK struggles – killing only 71.7% of penalties, good enough for 6^th in the league.

Discipline – to compound on the poor PK numbers, Perth take more penalties than any other team, averaging just over 20 PIM per game, or 6.6 minutes more than their opponents. This will need to be a focus this weekend, or opponents will sniff out a chance.

When they win

When they win, it’s about general play for the Thunder. They get more shots on net (40.8 shots in wins versus 32.3 shots in losses), and restrict opponents more (27.9 versus 40.1). Further to this, the save percentage in wins is above 0.900, while in losses this falls to 0.863.

Player to watch

Yu Hikosaka. “Mr. Bigtime” has a chance to live up to his nickname this weekend, and potentially take the Thunder through to a maiden Goodall Cup, capping off a strong season.

Under the radar: Is it under the radar if I keep raising it? Jordy Kyros has had a career-best season.