Adelaide goalkeeper has claimed his second AIHL shutout his rookie season as the Adrenaline beat the Sydney Ice Dogs 6-0 at the Liverpool Catholic Club Sports Complex on Saturday night.

With results pushing the Adrenaline out of the top four, the fifth-placed Adrenaline was looking to return to the upper half of the ladder and sweep the season series against the Ice Dogs.

Despite the Ice Dogs’ position on the ladder, the Adrenaline were prepared for a tight battle as the Sydney-siders pushed the South Australians all the way in their last two meetings in Adelaide in early May.

Adrenaline coach Ryan O’Handley said it strong performance from the outset from his charges.

“We had a great start and that really made a big difference,” O’Handley said. “We skated extremely well and moved the puck well. [It was] great to get a shutout for Charlie Smart as he was awesome in Newcastle the night before.  We needed the win to keep in the pack for the finals positions.”

It was definitely a breath-taking start for the Adrenaline with Jonathan Boxill barely giving fans enough time to find their seats before scoring after 14 seconds, which was followed up by a Tyler Grove tally just 53 seconds later.

Although some ill-discipline gave the Ice Dogs a sniff in the back end of the first period, the Ice Dogs were unable to capitalise, getting only two shots on goal for the entire first period.

The Adrenaline won the draw to start the second period setting up a déjà vu moment when they found the back of the net for the third time just 31 seconds in through new import defenceman Kory Helowka’s first AIHL goal.

Frustrations seemed to boil over halfway through the second when a four-on-four situation arose from a roughing call made against Ice Dog defenceman Daniel Pataky and Adrenaline centre Wehebe Darge.

Moments after both men entered the box; a hooking call saw the Ice Dogs gain a man advantage for a four-on-three power play. The Ice Dogs managed to only get two shots on goal with the man advantage before Pataky and Darge re-entered the ice.

However, at the back end of the Adrenaline’s penalty kill, Josef Rezek jumped on a loose puck to score short-handed to put the score a 4-0, prompting Ice Dogs’ coach Mario Passarelli to make a goaltending change with rookie Jake Burgess entering the game.

Burgess’ made his presence known immediately making a huge glove save on the back of a two-man breakaway and found himself able to defuse a similar rush 20 seconds later, earning the praise of his coach.

“Jake’s a young and very capable goalie,” Passarelli said. “It was the same situation as last night in Canberra where I was going to put him in and then all of a sudden we come out in the third and pop in and it becomes a game so I didn’t get the opportunity to put him in there, but tonight I didn’t take any chances when I saw the game get a little out of control, I made sure I got him in there.”

Building momentum off these saves saw the Ice Dogs make a charge late in the second in a desperate bid to get on the board to no avail.

4-0 down at the end of the second, the Adrenaline compounded the Ice Dogs’ problems, scoring their second shorthanded goal 29 seconds into the third for their third goal of the game within the first minute of a period.

Ice Dogs captain Brian Funes believes special teams is an area that the Ice Dogs need to work on.

“I just think we need to get in the zone and move the puck around more,” Funes said. “We tend to get very stationary once we get the puck in the zone and then it easier to get picked off with high pressure PK unit such as Adelaide; they’re a very aggressive PK unit. We’ve got to work on that.”

Alternately, Funes was full of praise of the penalty kill unit.

“We always seem to find ourselves on the penalty kill and we’ve realised that we have to play an aggressive style,” Funes said. “If we have referees that will put us in the box we’re going to have to have a tight PK unit so we’re actually starting to come together with a PK we just need to work on the PP.”

With five minutes to go, the Ice Dogs received another power play opportunity when the visiting team was guilty of slashing, however all hopes of capitalising on this dissipated when a fight broke out that saw two Ice Dogs in Scott Clemie and Sean Hamilton and the Adrenaline’s David Huxley taking early showers. Thing were made worse when an elbowing call against the home side resulted in a five-on-three power play leading to the Adrenaline outfit sealing the game 6-0 through a Tyler Grove goal.

When asked whether there is a rivalry developing between the two sides, Funes suggested that the similarities between the two sides created a rivalry-type atmosphere.

“They are always a tough side to play against,” Funes said. “They come from a small rink as well so they are used to playing on this type of surface and it’s always a tight game against them. They like to play physical, we like to play physical and when you have two physical teams, you get sparks flying and you get scrums that happen. But it’s all part the game and it adds to the competition.”

With the win, the Adrenaline move back into the top four, and O’Handley said there was one thing that was more important than anything else if the Adrenaline are going to feature in the finals – discipline.

“We need to stay out of the penalty box,” O’Handley said. “We are playing very well five-on-five so we need to play five-on-five.”

Next week, the Adrenaline host a home double header against the Ice, while the Ice Dogs head to Penrith to face the Bears.