The Perth Thunder shut out the Sydney Ice Dogs 4-0 at the Liverpool Catholic Club Sports Complex on Sunday night.

The Thunder turned in a dominant performance, earning maximum points from the Sydney road trip.

Perth coach Dave Kenway was pleased with his side’s effort.

“It was a really good start to our season on the road,” Kenway said. “We got the six points in the bag and we had a great weekend.”

Both sides were quick out of the gates, playing a fast, hard hitting style of hockey.

Discipline was an issue for Dogs, and a steady stream of the players to the penalty box saw the Dogs on their heels early.

Ice Dogs goalie Matt Grogan had to make a number of key saves in the first period to keep his side in the game as the Ice Dogs were outshot 14-6.

The Thunder’s power play eventually converted mid-way through the second period, when a booming point shot from Anthony Nottle was defelected in by Sam Wilson.

The Thunder continued to pile on the pressure and goals to Jonathon Bremner and Anthony Nottle saw the visitors take a 3-0 lead into the third period.

Other than Wilson’s opening goal, the Thunder were unable to convert the other six power play opportunities, something that Kenway sees as a small issue from a successful opening weekend for his side.

“The power play isn’t as good as I’d like it to be,” Kenway said. “We need to work on it, we had a lot of power plays tonight that we didn’t score on and that’s an something we’ll work on moving forward.”

The Ice Dogs seemed to find their feet in the third period, pressuring the Thunder and earning themselves three consecutive power plays.

However, Thunder goalie, Peter Di Salvo was stellar in net stopping all 16 shots on the night.

The Thunder picked up a fourth goal in the final seconds of the third period, when defenceman Rob Haselhurst found a loose puck in the slot and buried it to make it 4-0 to the visitors.

Sydney Ice Dogs coach Anders Jespersen, reflected on a challenging night for his team.

“It was a really tough game for us tonight, Perth came really hard from the first shift,” Jespersen said.

However, Jespersen was upbeat about his young side’s improvement from their opening weekend.

“Our game today was much better than it was in Melbourne,” Jespersen said. “All the little things we worked on during the week we did them much better tonight, particularly our forecheck.”

The Ice Dogs will shift their attention to next weekend, when they host the Melbourne Ice on Sunday night at the Liverpool Ice Rink while the Thunder head back to Perth, where the visiting CBR Brave will be town for a much anticipated double header.

Coach Kenway says his team is pumped and ready for the occasion.

“We’re going to come out very hard. It’s our home opener and hopefully the boys who were out of the line with injury this weekend will be back and ready to go,” Kenway said.