Weekend Road Warriors

The Brisbane Lightning took their show on the road this past weekend in New South Wales with stops in Newcastle on Saturday and Sydney on Sunday. 

Saturday was the first trip to Newcastle in 2024 to play the Northstars.  The Novocastrians have been in fairly good form to start the season and were leading the Rurak Conference with only 1 loss so far this year.  It was a fired up Northstars team that the Lightning came up against in the opening set of their weekend games, and from the start the Lightning were against it.  Newcastle scored 3 goals in the first period to take a 3-0 lead into the first intermission.  Curtis Meger in goal was very good, but the Northstars – with the addition of last year’s Rookie of the Year winner Riley Klugerman – were far better.  They were able to exploit the defensive structure of the Lightning and attack with speed through the neutral zone a number of times to produce high quality opportunites at goal.  The scoring chances heavily favoured the home team, and the Lightning were unable to generate more than a handful of chances against Newcastle goalie Matt Montgomery in his first AIHL start.  The play of the first line - Sacha Rapchuk centring brother Arum Rapchuk and Mongolian import Batu Gendunov - was one of the few things to celebrate for the Lightning this game.  In a 9-1 loss that line was only -1 on the goals for / against rating and was able to generate the occasional scoring chance.  The other highlight this game for the Lightning was the excellent play of youngster Luka Ouimette on defence.  The 18 year old Queenslander was a strong against the Northstars rush and was able to score his first AIHL goal to break the shutout in the third period.  “It was great to see Luka play so well,” said D partner Luke Moore.  “He more than held his own against some very strong attacking players and didn’t back down from any physical challenges.”  With three goals in the first, four in the second and another 2 in the third, the Northstars dominated the ice and the scoresheet.  Klugerman, in his first game of 2024, led the way with a hat trick to excite the Newcastle fans.  On a cold and rainy day north of Sydney, the Lightning were happy to hear the final whistle.

Sunday brought a bit of a reset for the Brisbane boys.  The Sydney Bears sit atop the Hellyer Conference and are a team filled with experienced AIHL stars and imports of the highest quality.  However, the Lightning seemed to come out with a renewed vigour and attention to detail around structure.  The defence stood tall for most of the game and this produced a much better and more competitive game of hockey than Saturday’s affair.  The first period ended 2-1 for the Sydney team, but the flow of the game meant that it could have gone either way.  Both teams had chances and the Bears were able to slip a couple of pucks past goalie Curtis Meger.  Sacha Rapchuk notched his first goal of the season for the Lightning in an inspired first period by the exciting young Lightning centreman.  The Lightning brought the heat in the second frame, despite being without star import defender Mitch Dyck for the majority of the game due to an undisclosed knock to the body.  The solid defensive play of the Lightning led to chances of neutral zone turnovers.  Sacha Rapchuk notched his second of the game, Julian Fodor cleaned up a loose puck in front of the net for a classic ‘garbage goal’, and Batu Gendunov was able to fire a puck past Bears goalie James Downie for his first AIHL goal.  The Brisbane team went into the second intermission with what appeared to be great confidence up 4-3.  The third, however, did not start the way the away team wanted.  Six straight goals from the Bears – including a hat trick by top import Kadlec and a nice finish be Lucas Hermann – put the Bears well in front.  A second gaol from Gendunov and a hat trick goal from Sacha Rapchuk were not enough to drag the black and white back to even and the game ended 9-6 for the home Bears.  Sacha Rapchuk was awarded City Fertility Player of the Game for the Lightning – fast strong hockey, 3 goals and 2 assists making him the obvious choice.  Batu Gendunov shone up front as well on the Lightning top line, as he looked to reclaim his form from the opening weekend of the season where he looked so dangerous.  ‘We had the game to take points from the Bears’, said a disappointed Arum Rapchuk.  ‘We need to be able to finish teams off rather than letting them back in the game, but the way we played in the first and second periods have me excited for the next few games ahead!’

The Brisbane Lightning look to take some positives from the weekend and look forward to road games a week from now in Melbourne against the Mustangs and the Ice.