The Central Coast Rhinos kept themselves in playoff contention, defeating Brisbane Lightning 6-3 on Saturday night and Adelaide Adrenaline 4-2 on Sunday night.

Central Coast Rhino’s forward David-James Jeremy shared, “Two wins at home is fantastic by anybody’s standard, especially for us in the position we’re in. It’s the first time in our history I think we’ve won two at home in front of our fans. We’ve been building something for the last 18 months, and you’re seeing the progress the group is making.”

The Rhinos outshot the Lightning 34-29 Saturday night with two goals to Danick Bouchard and one to Aziz Baazi in the first period.

Arum Rapchuck and Mitch Dyck scored for the Lightning, with the Rhinos carrying a 3-2 lead into the first intermission.

“The Rhinos are a very, very hard-working team. Kudos to them for sticking to their game plan,” shared Lightning Assistant Captain Mitch Dyck. “Looking back on it through video, there’s definite times in the game where we gave them the opportunity that they scored on, and it’s those lapses in judgement and those lapses in our systems that cost us the game.”

Central Coast Rhinos Captain Bert Malloy shared, “It feels good to win, and I think we put together a full game. For the most part, we are in every game, and we want to eliminate the 5-minute breakdowns.”

“It’s always helpful to set the tone and bury one early,” continued Malloy, “Bouchard and Aziz were unbelievable once again, and it’s awesome to see the crowds growing and getting more and more familiar faces every home game.”

Mackenzie Bolger would score first for the Rhinos in the second period, and a powerplay goal from Chance Adrian would bring the Lightning back within one until seven seconds later when Adrien Sebag would give the Rhinos a two-goal lead, which they would take into the second intermission.

Lightning head coach Terry Kiliwnik shared, “I think in the league now, you can’t make mistakes. When you make mistakes, there’s so much talent in this league that guys are going to capitalise on that. You’ve really got to limit your mistakes that you make and give opportunities when you don’t have to.”

Bolger would score the game’s final goal with 11 seconds left, short-handed, to secure the six goal win for the Rhinos.

“We forechecked and backchecked as a unit, and we played better defensively than before. The major positive was two strong third periods,” shared Jeremy, “We’ve had some tough ends to games in the past where we were leading after two, and in both games, we closed out and got ahead.”

“We need to continue to press our size, finish our checks and generate more scoring opportunities from that pressure,” Jeremy continued, “Anand [Oberoi] played two very strong games and goals from all three lines helped. Aziz Baazzi is always calm and collected and he stood out across the weekend.”

Brisbane hold onto the final playoff spot in the Rurak Conference, with plenty of scope for improvement as the race for finals heats up.

With time on the puck and understanding the management of a game a message the coaching the staff are continuing to relay to the Lightning roster.

“That’s probably a big key one; guys are starting to understand that, as there are things that we’re asking them to do in terms of puck management, and they’re doing it much better,” reflected Lightning head coach Kiliwnik.

“You just can’t give opportunities away as it’s going to come back and haunt you. There’s always room for improvement, so we’ll have a look at the video and see how we can limit things a bit more defensively.”

Malloy shared how the Rhinos can continue to improve, including, “We are still working on our defensive structure and making the good first pass that gets us out of the D zone. We also need to score more on the powerplay. Sunday’s game was very similar, and in the grand scheme of things, these were two games we needed to win.”

The Central Coast Rhinos have a single game in Sydney this weekend: Saturday night’s match against the Sydney Bears.

Brisbane Lightning will host Canberra Brave for two games over the weekend, and Adelaide Adrenaline will host Newcastle Northstars.