Photo: Caribou CBR Brave goaltender Aleksi Toivonen by Matt Hartigan
The Caribou CBR Brave return to the icy battlefield on Sunday afternoon, hosting the Melbourne Ice at the Brave Cave.
The Brave enter the weekend looking to continue their dominating recent form and take all six points on offer, but in order to do so they must first conquer Rurak Rivals the Newcastle Northstars on Saturday, before turning their attention to the once mighty Melbourne Ice
This Sunday, the Ice enter the always imposing Brave Cave in search of loot to plunder in the form of not only competition points, but also consistency. The recent form of the Ice has been patchy to say the least.
Keys to the Game
Which Melbourne Ice arrives!
The Ice have shown glimpses of hope and excitement to their ever faithful, however have struggled to convert this into consistent form and more importantly points. The Ice opened the season strong with an 8-4 win over the Northstars but, have since either put big numbers on the board, or allowed big numbers.The Ice come off the back of a tough trip road to the Boondall where they faced the ever-physical Lightning, with the Ice taking the W 11 - 9 in an absolute goal fest. The Ice then travelled to Macquarie for the Sunday game against the Ice Dogs, who have shown much improvement in recent weeks, only for the Ice to go down to the Dogs 8 - 4 in another poor showing by the Ice.
Will the Ice arrive at the Cave motivated by recent success or deflated after falling victim to a Dogs resurgence.
The stats don’t lie!
The Ice have been a mixed bag through the season, as their 5-9 record indicates, but when you dig a little deeper, the stats show a worrying trend, in stark contrast to their record.Since winning their season opener against the Northstars, the Ice have notched another four wins. Despite picking up the points, the Goals For average and the Goals Against average demonstrate the issue at the core of the Ice’ performance.
Whilst the season trajectory in terms of result ebbs and flows, the GAA and GFA since that opening game has been pretty static. As it stands, the Ice currently hold a 4.64 GFA per game and a 6.07 GAA per game. Through the course of the season, they have an average GFA of 4.08 and a GAA of 5.4. Throwing our Year 7 math caps on, the mode (most frequently occurring) of the season results thus far isn't far off that sitting at just 3.7 GFA and 5.7 GAA.
Contrast this with the Brave and a worrying picture starts to take shape for the Ice faithful. The Brave currently boast a healthy 5.17 GFA per game and a measly 2.83 GAA per game. Most importantly for the Brave, the margin between the two is on the rise as the team find their rhythm.
Photo: Brave forward Matt Harvey scores past Melbourne Ice goaltender Austin Lefkowicz by Matt Hartigan
Head-to-Head
This will be the last meeting between these two for Season 2023, with the expansion of the league and the introduction of a conference system. It is difficult to imagine that the Ice would make an appearance in Finals action, but I will leave that to more learned statisticians to myself to decide whether it would be a mathematical possibility.
The Brave have already secured three points in a Melbourne raid, and with the statistics painting the picture they have, it is hard to see the Ice spoiling the party in the Nation’s Capital.
But the one thing that you can always count on is that it is sure to be a barn burner when the boys hit the ice!
Make sure you get down to the Brave Cave and remind the Ice why it is the most imposing place to enter in the AIHL.
#AlwaysBrave #WeAreCBR #Brave2k23
The details
Tickets: Caribou CBR Brave v Melbourne IceWhen: Sunday, 18 June 2023. Puck drops at 4:45pm
Where: The Brave Cave (Phillip Ice Skating Centre) – 1 Irving Street, Phillip ACT
Cost: Tickets start from $15