Week 10 recap: Newcastle continue standings surge

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It’s been made officially known that the 2025 AIHL playoffs will feature the usual six teams on that famous last weekend in August, some news that radically upped the ante of this week’s fixtures.

All eight teams are still in the hunt to feature in the post-season showcase, and several could legitimately make a run at a crucial top two seed that guarantees a place in the semi-finals by the end of the regular season. With two top four sides dropping crucial points this weekend, it’s all still up for grabs.

So, here are the key moments from the six games this weekend.



Playoff race intensifies as Northstars complete upset double over Mustangs, Thunder

The Newcastle Northstars have won six of their last seven games and suddenly are just six points behind an all-important top two seed in the AIHL standings.

This momentous push toward a genuine tilt at the Goodall Cup spurred onward this weekend, as the Northstars defeated the Melbourne Mustangs 7-4 on Saturday and the Perth Thunder 3-2 in overtime on Sunday, the two teams directly above them in the standings.

Saturday’s win was led by a Kim Tallberg hattrick, two of those goals coming in the first four minutes of the game. Newcastle’s offense, which has been so electric in recent weeks, generated close to 50 shots on goal in this contest, allowing them to take a 4-0 lead near the end of the first period.

Despite a pair of goals to both Scott Timmins and Mac Roy, the early 4-0 hole was too much for Melbourne to crawl out of, with Tallberg’s third of the night putting a potential comeback out of reach.

Newcastle delivered chance after chance against Perth on Sunday, having one of their more dominant defensive performances of the season also. The Northstars would outshoot the Thunder by 34 (54-20) and didn’t concede a single shot on net in overtime.

Despite that fact, Thunder fans should be happy with stealing a point on the road, as supreme goaltending from Aleksi Toivonen saved this game from being a potential blowout win for Newcastle.

Toivonen produced one of the better goalie stat lines of the season, saving 51 of the 54 shots of the match for .944 save percentage. That included shutting the door on Newcastle’s first 22 shots of game, allowing Perth to actually go up 2-0 midway through the second period.

However, Newcastle’s offense was simply too much to overcome in the end as Perth struggled to generate a high volume of chances, Evgeni Skachkov scoring the winner with 50 seconds remaining in OT.



Ice overpower Lightning in high-scoring weekend

The Melbourne Ice went home with five of a possible six points after two high-scoring clashes with the Brisbane Lighting this match week. They climbed out of a two-goal deficit to win 5-4 in overtime on Saturday and then annihilated Brisbane with 12 goals on Sunday to win by seven.

The Big Three in Brisbane combined again superbly on Saturday, Tanner Hopps scoring three of the Lightning’s four goals, with at least one of Jules Sturny and Carson Miller assisting on each of them. However, the Lightning will rue their poor discipline in this contest, as their eight penalties results in three powerplay goals for the Ice, two of which tied the game in the third period to send the match to overtime.

In the extra period, the NHL excellence of David Booth was far too good, scoring quickly to secure the come-from-behind win.

Booth would guide Melbourne’s offense on Sunday as they obliterated Brisbane with five first period goals on just ten shots, completely knocking the wind out of Brisbane’s typical offensive gusto. Booth would finish this game with a goal and five assists, one of seven Ice scorers for the game. Mackenzie Caruana and Jamie Bourke scored a hattrick each while Joakim Erdugan joined Kolton Shindle in the top five of the 2025 AIHL points leaders, his seven points (1G, 6A), taking his season tally to 35.

The Ice are now in a near insurmountable position at the top of the AIHL ladder, 17 points clear of the Lightning in second place. It will truly take a defensive masterclass and probably a bit of luck to knock the Ice off from here, still being the only team to not lose in regulation yet this season.

Rhinos’ revenge keeps season alive

While sitting in eighth place on 12 points doesn’t suggest a successful season, Central Coast have played with a competitive edge in 2025 rarely seen from them in their prior two campaigns. The Rhinos are averaging 3.5 goals per game and conceding 5.44 a game so far this season, both considerably better than their 2024 and 2023 metrics.

However, the Melbourne Mustangs have had the Rhinos’ number more than anyone else in 2025. Across their first three clashes this year, Melbourne have scored 22 goals against Central Coast (7.3 per game) and conceded just four total. The expectation this weekend was game number four would follow a similar story.

Except it didn’t.

After going down 1-0 in the first period, the Rhinos fired back with four consecutive second period goals, even while being outshot 15-13 for the period. They demonstrated the depth of their four lines with a different scorer on every goal, Alex Gauthier netting one on the powerplay to go up 3-1 before Danick Bouchard would score the ultimate game-winner with 20 seconds remaining in the period.

The Mustangs don’t go down without a fight, of course, so many Rhinos fans would have been nervous when Hayden Dawes scored on the powerplay for Melbourne and when they conceded a shorthanded goal to Dean Klomp to make it a 4-3 game.

But Central Coast impressively held their nerve, Tomas Landa and Dmitri Kuleshov combining to seal the game with three minutes to go, Mackenzie Bolger put one in the empty net for a 6-3 win.