Eight teams began the quest for the Goodall Cup and only two remain. It tells you something about the Melbourne Ice and the MOAT: Melbourne Mustangs that despite playing in the closest season the league has ever seen with every team a legitimate contender, they’ve found a way to reprise the Melbourne derby one last time for the cup.
Both coaches agree it’s a great match up for the sport of hockey in Australia with the Melbourne Ice coach, Brent Laver predicting it will be massive.
“The derbies are fun on their own but it’s all going to go up quite a few notches and I think it’s going to be insane,” Laver said. “I think everyone’s just looking forward to it; I think everyone’s got a little bit of butterflies already tickling away so I think its going to be massive.”
The Melbourne Ice enters the grand finals after a convincing 6-1 win over this season’s Cinderella story, the CBR Brave. The Ice was able to shake off year’s semi final loss to the Sydney Ice Dogs to show once again why they’re built for this time of year. They’ve now played in the last eight post seasons - second only in games to the Newcastle North Stars in that span - with the famous three-peat of Goodall cups between 2010-2012.
“The guys get just as nervous and just as apprehensive but it helps because you can just go straight into the finals mode,” Laver said. “When you’ve been there and won it; you’re craving that feeling again. I think it helps that you’re chasing, people think that maybe it might make you a little nonchalant about it but I think it does the opposite with this group. They’re as hungry as they’ve ever been.”
The MOAT: Melbourne Mustangs meanwhile had their biggest test in the semi finals when they were down 2-1 at the end of the first but rallied to win the game 6-4. It was an impressive way to get going in the clubs first ever playoff appearance to end the hopes of the reigning champions, Sydney Ice Dogs.
The Mustangs enter the grand final in a pretty positive frame of mind after their success.
“I like our chances,” Vigon said. “We’re playing pretty well, we’ve got a solid team, we’ve got a lot of depth goaltending standing up and playing well so I like our chances.”
Only one of the league’s top-ten point scorers remain in the finals, Mustang’s alternate captain Pat O’Kane. He will be going head-to-head with the Ice’s captain, Lliam Webster. Both players have produced six points in the Melbourne derbies this season and have prominent roles within their clubs.
The Mustang’s went head-to-head with the league’s leader in points, Simon Barg and won the battle limiting him to one assist in the semi final with David Dunwoodie and John Clewlow scrambling to fill the void.
O’Kane formed a new top line with forwards Viktor Gibbs-Sjödin and Jamie Bourke for an effective 62.5% of points for the team with a total of four goals and 10 points. Season long they have produced a collective 38.4% of points for the Mustangs and in the Melbourne derbies contributed to 48.4% of points with eight goals, seven assists. With O’Kane behind the net last night, they were scarily effective in initiating scoring opportunities with Bourke opening ice up for Gibbs-Sjödin’s snipering.
“It’s a whole team effort,” Vigon said. “You know Viktor, he has that big shot and Bourke went down on the wing and picked that puck up and gave him a perfect pass right on his tape to put it home. That’s what the big boys are supposed to do and that’s what he did; he capitalized at the right time.”
The Mustangs depth continues with strong scoring coming from their second line of Joseph Hughes, Jeffrey Grant and Sean Jones. The three combined contributed 29.7% of scoring for the Mustangs this season with two solid goals last night.
The change in lines for the Mustangs gives coach Vigon options to present the Ice with something unseen so far this season though it’s effectiveness hasn’t met the Ice defence just yet.
The Ice successfully stifled the leagues leading goal scorer Stephen Blunden to one goal with the CBR Brave’s top line all spending time in the penalty box. Webster was kept to one assist for the Ice though nine teammates contributed to the score including two goals for four points from forward Tommy Powell and three assists for Jeremy Brown.
The Ice have dominated the regular season derby series winning three out of four games including one overtime win. The top seven point producers for the Ice account for 75.1% of scoring in the team which breaks down almost identically in the derby with them producing 12 out of 16 goals.
Melbourne Ice jumped on every on every opportunity last night to great effect with a simplistic game plan.
“We kept it simple,” Laver said. “We went out there with two main goals, clear pucks from our zone and get pucks deep into theirs. We thought if we could sort of cross those two key performance indicators off it would go a long way to winning it.”
Both teams had an aggressive fore-check and were winning battles in the neutral zone in their respective semi finals. The Mustangs continually forced icings from a frustrated Ice Dogs team by clogging up the neutral zone, giving them no space and forcing them to dump it in. The Ice used a similar strategy with their forwards cheating at the line and defense holding the blue to force turnovers on bad passes leading to breakaways on the Brave goal.
Ice coach Laver has nothing but praise for the Mustang’s coach Brad Vigon and the system he runs.
“They were fantastic,” Laver said. “They looked sharp, they looked fast, they looked hungry and we know they’re hungry. Brad is such a great coach and has them so well drilled. I think they’ve been the benchmark, there’s no doubt about it. They finished on top for a reason.”
One key factor for tomorrow’s game will be special teams. The Mustang’s came into the finals with 83.3% home penalty kill yet gave up two for two to the Ice Dogs in the semi final. History isn’t kind to them either with the Mustangs going a total 16.7% on the power play in derby games this season. With how physical Melbourne clashes have been this season; coach Vigon should be looking to keep a disciplined line-up as they are a far more dominant in five-on-five hockey.
The Ice leads the league on power play goals with 27.7% in the regular season. Breaking it down to derby games they’ve had a successful 30% against the Mustangs and went an amazing 80% on five attempts yesterday.
“Can’t fault much this evening,” Webster said. “We’ve had a pretty dangerous power play all year so it was good to follow through [yesterday] as well.”
The second key factor for the game lies in the goaltending match up. The Mustangs goaltender, Fraser Carson has been solid all season and played three out of four Melbourne derbies with a combines .872 SV% and 3.7 GAA. After giving up some juicy rebounds in the first against the Ice Dogs yesterday, the Mustangs were able to shelter Carson more and he stonewalled their attempts for the win with an .818 SV%.
Jaden Pine-Murphy in net for the Ice has set the bar for goaltending in the league and finished the season with the lowest GAA with 2.33 and second highest save percentage at .913%. He has only faced the Mustangs once in net and came away with the win with a .909 SV%.
Familiarity from sharing a rink between the two teams means that anything could happen on the ice tomorrow as both teams compete for the 2014 Goodall cup.
“Any game where its Melbourne Ice vs. Melbourne Mustangs it gets pretty ridiculous anyway so it’s just another one of them really,” Webster said. “There’s the added hype of the derby grand final but what do you do? You show up and play hockey just like any other day.”
Puck drops at 3pm in the Medibank Icehouse in Melbourne for the grand final of the 2014 season. The AIHL Awards will be announced 30 minutes before the puck drops at 2:30pm.
ICE DOGS
RHINOS
ADRENALINE
BEARS
THUNDER
ICE
BRAVE
LIGHTNING
NORTHSTARS
MUSTANGS
