Melbourne Ice flex muscles against lackluster Adrenaline

A five goal night from Danish superstar Lasse Lassen spoiled Canada Day celebrations at the Ice ArenA for the Adelaide Adrenaline in what was a dominant performance from the Melbourne Ice.

The league-leading Ice - who are yet to lose a game in regulation this season – controlled proceedings from the opening face-off and ran out eventual 9-1 winners on the back of Lassen’s offensive show.

Melbourne head coach, Brent Laver praised Lassen’s performance in what has been an injury interrupted season for the 27 year-old.

“He was out last week but back to his best, you can’t help but be a fan when he gets up and going,” Laver said.

“Really, really happy for him, he’s had a tough year with some injury but he was outstanding tonight.”

Whilst Lassen’s performance was the highlight for the visitors, Laver emphasised that his individual efforts are not possible without the whole team pitching in an executing a targeted game plan on the smaller Adelaide ice surface.

“We trained all week on moving the puck quick and trying to make that the signature of our game because we’re pretty fast on the big ice and we just thought if we could make puck movement the way to do it here, that’s what we would be aiming for.”

The Ice looked like the team their record suggests, controlling possession and forcing the Adrenaline on to the back foot from the word go.

It was Lassen who fittingly got proceedings underway for the visitors, netting the opening two goals of the contest in the space of 15 seconds.

The Ice never looked back from there and it wasn’t until the third period, by which time the visitors led 6-0, that the Adrenaline got on the board courtesy of Darren Corstens’ fourth goal of the year.

Laver was particularly pleased with the three period effort, having targeted it as the major area in need of improvement for his side.

“[consistency] is just something we haven’t ticked off, we’ve been solid but we’ve played ten minutes here, ten minutes there and to actually come out and just play three periods of hockey is really what we were chasing,” Laver said.