Tale of the Tape - Northstars @ Brave

At this time of the year, each weekend brings games with big post-season implications and this is no different, with the Northstars traveling to Canberra for the final AIS game of season 2025. With the recent points penalty to the Perth Thunder, one point separates three teams in the fight for second spot – so there are a big three points on offer here. The Tale of the Tape takes a look at how the Northstars and Brave stack up.

Note all these numbers are before Saturday’s games.

Overall in 2025

Tale of the tape so far in 2025

This will be the final and fourth game between these teams in 2025, with the Brave leading the series 2-1, all having been decided in regulation so far. Across the series, things have been very tight – with each team tallying 15 goals in total, and the biggest win being Newcastle’s 2 goal win back on June 7^th at the Hunter Ice Skating Stadium.

A big reason for the Brave to be leading the season series has been special teams. Their powerplay has been successful 36.4% of the time, compared to just 10.5% for the Northstars.

When it comes to scoring, for Newcastle, recently converted D-man Francis Drolet has six goals and two assists over the three games, with five points each for Karel Kubat, Evgenii Skachkov and Casey Kubara against his old team (all with one goal, four assists). For Canberra, Dom Canic leads scoring with six apples from captain Kai Miettinen who has two goals and three assists.

At the other end of the ice, the last time around Alex Tetreault pinched one, stopping 48 of 51 shots as the Brave only registered 24 themselves in a 4-3 win. Overall he has been the leading goalie between the teams in 2025, with a save percentage of 0.897, followed by Joel Hasselman (0.850), Horrance Cheung (0.833) and Charlie Smart (0.825).

Longer history

These two teams have a long history of battling it out, both in the regular season and at Finals. If we dig into that I’ll be here all night writing about it, so we’ll focus on the last two years. For the record, since the Brave were formed in 2014, their record against Newcastle in the regular season is 21W-4OTW-1OTL-10L.

Over 2023 and 2024, the teams have split all eight games evenly – four regulation wins apiece. Through those, the Northstars have scored 2 more goals than the Brave, averaging 4.5 goals per game from their 36.25 shots, against the Brave’s 4.25 goals on 33.625 shots.

In stark contrast to 2025, it has been Newcastle special teams leading the way, with a powerplay that scores 25.6% of the time, and a penalty kill blanking 91.3% of all Brave efforts on the man-advantage.

The good news for Newcastle is that two of their top three scorers against the Brave are playing in 2025 – Francis Drolet, who has 14 points, and Ethan Hawes with 10 points. Splitting them is Daniel Berno with 13. The even better news for Newcastle is that the highest scorer for the Brave against Newcastle is Casey Kubara – who had 11 points over the two years. Next best for the Brave is Felix Plouffe and Matt Harvey, each with 7 points.

For the goalies, Alex Tetreault had a very impressive save percentage of 0.912 against the Northstars, while Charlie Smart has 0.881 against the Brave – showing some quality in net.

Period by period

The Northstars are a very consistent team through all three periods of games, where the Brave need to find a way to get slow starts under control – or they’ll be looking to fight back again.

Likely lineups

Pending any injuries or suspensions, here is how we think the teams will line up on the weekend – based around last weekend. Karel Kubat has been absent in recent games, so his availability will be an important factor as it has pushed Francis Drolet to play defense. If available, Ryan Annesley would be a key addition for Newcastle as well.