The Melbourne Mustangs finished their season with a road win over the finals-bound Newcastle North Stars in 5-4 shootout at Hunter Ice Skating Stadium on Sunday night.

The win saw the Mustangs claimed a second win at Hunter Ice Skating Stadium in 2016.

“I thought it was a good game, the North Stars are always a tough team to play against,” Mustangs Coach Michael Flaherty said. “It’s always hard to play against them up here. Happy to come away with two wins this year up here, and I wish them all the best for the playoffs.”

Josh Harris put the first points on the board for the North Stars just over a minute into the match, slotting the puck straight past the top right shoulder of the Mustangs goalie Chris Slauenwhite.

While you could assume that it would be the start of victory lap of sorts for the North Stars who are aiming to claim back-to-back AIHL Championship, the Mustangs showed it wouldn’t be that easy.

Goals to Brendan McDowell and Sean Jones gave the Mustangs the lead midway through the period.

While the North Stars’ Connor McLaughlin dragged the score back to level, Mustangs rookie Luke Fisher scored his first AIHL goal to give his side a 3-2 lead at the first break.

“Our final weekend, we had 103 shots in regulation time and 11 goals - I am not disappointed at all,” North Stars Coach Andrew Petrie said. “We had a couple of lapses in concentration, a couple of individual decision errors that immediately cost us goals. We can identify three issues that cost us goals. From a coaching perspective, it’s not fun to watch that happen but it’s easier to deal with than if it’s a breakdown of a whole system. Individual errors we can fix.”

The second period was an almost scoreless proposition for both teams as they began to deal out big hits to the boards.

However, McLaughlin ensured the teams went to the final break locked at 3-all, scoring with 1 second left in the period.

“We got to the point in the season where we couldn’t make playoffs, so I decided I wanted to give our young guys some opportunities,” Flaherty said. “Playing a quality side like the North Stars like this in this situation under this pressure is a great learning curve for them and its really going to help them develop in the future.”

Bursting out into the final period, the physicality of the game did not drop off, and a quick goal to Beau Taylor saw the North Stars pull ahead with a 4-3 lead 35 seconds into the final stanza.

With explosive skating from the NNS and big saves from Davis, the vocal home crowd were chanting loud and hopeful for a win, but a sneaky goal through Davis’ five-hole saw the game go to penalty shootout, which the Mustangs swept for a 5-4 victory.

“Yeah, we love them - what are we one in six?” joked Petrie. “To be honest, in the shootout tonight, we went with guys we wouldn’t usually use in a shootout who said they would definitely score if they were in a shootout. Never again. My dastardly plan was to go and have Jester [Shane Southwood] score and give a few other guys a go.”

“Yesterday we were dominant all over the ice and on the scoreboard; tonight we were dominant all over the ice and not on the score board, that’s the issue in our league. Its one and done next Saturday, if we show up and do our best we will beat any team in the league.”

Next week, the North Stars face the Perth Thunder in the second semi-final at O’Brien Group Arena next Saturday night.