18/06/2022 Pacific Hockey League – Adelaide Avalanche vs Brisbane Rampage 2-3

Some of the photos from the Saturday game of the Pacific Hockey League double header between the Adelaide Avalanche and the Brisbane Rampage play on 18/06/2022 at the Ice Arena in Adelaide, South Australia.  The Avalanche were looking at capitalising on their home rink advantage and Jeremy Friederich in between the pipes would have a lot to do without young goalie gun Matus Trnka out with an ACL injury.  At the other end Rampage had decided to put Luca D’Arsie in goals, rather than Nicholas Novysedlak.

The Avalanche would open the scoring when Jory Macdougall won cleanly from the faceoff and did an excellent pass to Nathaniel Benson to score the opener at 14:27.  The Avalanche would have  a powerplay at 11:12 when Rampage’s Derry Adler was seen to be kneeing his opponent.  The Rampage would eventually bounce back at 6:11 when Anthony Barnes found ex-AIHL Adelaide Adrenaline player Harley Anderson all along in front of the net to rifle one past Friederich.  The Avalanche would take the lead again at 4:04 when Yoann Levesque passed to Darren Corstens who shot past the Rampage defenders and scored.  With 22secs remaining in the period Avalanche’s Benson and Rampage’s Adler took to each other from some roughing and both headed for a 2min break in the sin bin.  With the period ticking away in the dying seconds Rampage scored after a shot by Owen Sobchak then deflected off Josh Anderson and just made it past goaltender Friederich.  Harley Anderson would be the other assist. Shots on goal for the periods saw Avalanche’s Friederich face 11 shots to D’Arsie 10 shots.

The second period was tight and scrappy, pretty much the same as the first period with a lot of aggression shown by both sides.  The Avalanche would get a powerplay at 15:56 (Sobchak for slashing) but were unable to score with the extra player advantage.  Then Avalanche’s captain Joey Macdougall would slash his Rampage opponent and head to the bench for 2mins, but the Rampage were unable to score.  This just showed the strength of both the team’s defence.  Eventually the Rampage silenced the home crowd as Derry Adler knocked into Friederich after a sharp angle shot from Stefan Speck, and the puck found a way through to put the Rampage one goal up with 3:18 remaining.  The score would remain at 3:2.  Shots on goal for the period saw the Avalanche dominate with 12 shots against 5.

The third period saw no change to the score, despite penalties to Avalanche’s Aleksi Alakoski for misconduct (making a comment the referee didn’t like) and Rampage’s Marco Bertossa for interference.  The Rampage dominated the shot clock in the last period with 12 shots on goal against the Avalanche’s 6.