Adrenaline @ Northstars Saturday 13th July Game Recap

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Following back-to-back games against the Newcastle Northstars, the Adrenaline travelled east on Saturday to play the top-seeded team in their home arena.

Determined to change the narrative from the previous weekend, the Northstars were quick to charge into the offensive zone and get the first goal of the game.
The Adrenaline responded by pushing the Northstars to the boards and forcing them to circle back into their own end, making it difficult for the team to get another clear shot of the net.

As the period wound down, Daniel Chen grabbed the puck and raced towards starting goalie Mitsuaki Inoue, putting the Adrenaline on the board with a beautiful breakaway goal.

Rylan Toth was put to the test in the second period as he skilfully stopped twelve shots and gave the Northstars very few rebound opportunities. The Adrenaline were unable to capitalize on a couple of powerplays and Francis Drolet soon scored his second goal of the game and put the Northstars up 2-1.

Josh Adkins played well against his former team and nearly tied the game, but instead was able to assist Julian Friederich in getting the tying powerplay goal with two minutes to go in the second period. A tense third period saw an equal amount of penalty minutes handed out but remained scoreless and went into overtime for the third straight game in a row.

With both sides unable to produce another goal it was down to yet another shootout to determine the winner. After six attempts from both teams returned no results, player-coach Kaden Elder was the only one able to breakthrough and score the game winning goal.
The Adrenaline pick up their second straight shootout win and will head to Sydney to face the Bears on Sunday afternoon.

Daniel Chen is optimistic that his team can bring the intensity needed to secure more points for the playoff push: “We can play with the top team in our division and we recognize that, so we can hopefully use that to keep driving us.”

Catch all the action on AIHL.tv starting at 5:00pm ACST.

Joanna Gruenberg