After the excitement of taking the Canberra Brave to shootout the night before it would be interesting to see what the Adelaide Adrenaline could come up with for the second of the double header weekend AIHL games at the Ice Arena on 19/05/2024. The crowd was down on numbers, most likely due to the Australian Football League (AFL) team Port Power playing at home in Adelaide. The pace and hits were similar to the Saturday’s game and it took 12mins before a goal was registered to either team. Before that though Brave’s Charlie York headed to the sinbin at 15:04 for an interference minor. Then with just over 8mins remaining in the period Brave’s Bodhi Matthew tripped his opponent and had a 2min rest in the sinbin giving the Adrenalin the powerplay again. Unfortunately for Adelaide though Brave’s Austin Cangelosi broke through and scored shorthanded, with an assist from Jake Ratcliffe. With a bit over 5mins to go Adrenaline’s Jared Siemens was deemed for charging (some said the whole game and Saturday’s had a lot of charging) which gave the Brave the powerplay. Casey Kubara made use of it and scored a mere 6secs later to give the Brave a 2-goal lead. Shots on goal were very different with the Adrenaline able to put a lot more on goaltender Alexandre Tetreault, 11 shots to the Brave’s 15 shots.
An early powerplay opportunity to the Adrenaline 28secs into the 2nd period (Lachlan Fahmy for tripping) didn’t result in a goal as the Brave’s penalty kill unit did the job. Daniel Koudelka, new kid on the block for the Adrenaline fell foul of the referees and was deemed for hooking at 13:34 on the clock. Again the Brave wasted no time and almost straight off the faceoff in the Adrenaline’s end Casey Kubara scored his 2nd goal for the game. The assists had come from Cameron Marks and Cangelosi. The Adrenaline were given 2 powerplays (Charlie York for boarding at 11:05 and Fahmy for interference at 3:22) but were unable to score despite putting many shots on. The game was creeping away from the Adrenaline. Shots on goal for the period were very much in favour of the Adrenaline 17-4!
The 3rd period didn’t bode well for the Adrenaline with 2 penalties, the first being Steve Best for hooking at 17:50. The second came from Daniel O’Handley and Brave’s Cangelosi having a stoush and heading to sinbin for roughing minors at 14:24. The first team to score following that was the Brave to put in an unassailable 4-goal lead when Tyler Kubara scored at 12:30. Assists came from Jacob Carey and York. Daniel O’Handley was deemed for slashing at 9:55, probably frustrated with how the game was getting away from the Adrenaline after the excellent team effort the day before. The Adrenaline finally found a way past Tetreault when Josh Adkins scored at 6:44 to at least avoid the shutout. Daniel Chen and O’Handley had the assists. Two more penalties ensued (Brave’s Fahmy for slashing at 6:24, and Adrenaline’s Siemens for interference at 2:08) but the score didn’t change. Shots on goal had returned in favour of the Brave 11-5. The two wins for the weekend took the Brave off the bottom of the ladder and unfortunately the Adrenaline found themselves back in that position again.
