A short-benched Adelaide Adrenaline bounced back with a strong performance on Sunday night, facing a narrow defeat in a 4–2 loss to the Melbourne Ice.
Adelaide kept it close right until the final minute of the game, where at 3-2 and on a power play, Nicholas Novysedlak was pulled for the extra skater to make it 6on4 in favour of the Adrenaline. Despite the two-man advantage, it was the Ice that capitalised, grabbing an empty-net goal to seal the game.
Despite the final score, Adelaide’s performance marked a clear improvement in execution and intensity compared to the previous night’s defeat, a tremendous bounce-back effort.
Right from puck drop, Adelaide came out of the gates flying - their pace, positioning, and puck movement were sharper with intense offensive pressure and a lot of traffic in front of Melbourne’s net.
Jordan Freeman and Josh Adkins found the early lead for the Adrenaline, capitalising on the newfound intensity, but Melbourne withstood the pressure well and things were tied up at two a piece by the end of the first period.
The competitiveness of the Adrenaline was even more impressive considering several key absences - Daniel Chen, Kyle MacPhail, Marcel McGuiness, Andrew Hamilton, Ty Wright and Shaun Dosanjh were all out of the lineup due to illness or injury.
Netminder Nick Novysedlak stood tall in between the pipes, facing 35 shots and keeping Adelaide in the game with multiple key saves throughout the contest.
It’s the Adelaide Adrenaline’s first away games next weekend. They’ll be heading to New South Whales to face the Central Coast Rhinos and Newcastle Northstars. Tune into AIHL.TV to watch the Action!
BRAVE
ICE
ADRENALINE
RHINOS
NORTHSTARS
THUNDER
MUSTANGS
LIGHTNING
