The CBR Brave downed the Melbourne Mustangs 5-4 thanks to a Kelly Geoffrey goal with on 47 seconds remaining on Saturday night at Phillip Swimming and Ice Skating
The Brave and Mustangs turned on an instant classic that had almost everything fans could want out of an AIHL game, including a grandstand finish, in front of a vocal capacity crowd.
Brave coach Brad Hunt was said it was a good game, clearly happy to be on the right side of the result.
“We let them back into the game a couple times, which we shouldn’t have done, so we’ve got some work to do again,” Hunt said. “We’re still giving away too many shots. But to get a goal with a minute left was nice. Nice for us to get one instead of them getting one.”
On the other side of the equation, Mustangs coach Brad Vigon said that his team was “close but we’re not getting over the line”.
“It rips your heart out to lose like that in the last minute after we kept clawing back and evening up and equalising,” Vigon said. “To come up short is pretty tough.”
From the outset, the game was back and forth.
Although seeming a bit rusty after the weekend off with passes not quite as crisp as they would have liked, the Mustangs quickly shook it off, pushing hard to control their attacking zone.
The Brave, on the other hand, were playing a counterattacking style of game, trying to get their talented forwards out into open ice.
While the intensity was there, the finishing wasn’t, although both goalkeepers were strong, particularly Michael James who had the pick of the saves with a huge glove midway through the period.
It took a no-look pass from Geoffrey deep on the attack for Blunden to open the scoring for the Brave.
The celebrations were short lived as the Mustangs made sure they were going to be all tied up at the first break when a booming shot from Akins at the point gave Joey Hughes rebound.
Akins was in the thick of it again 30 seconds into the second, assisting on Pat O’Kane’s goal to give the Mustangs the lead.
The Mustangs came out of the sheds stronger, but the goal almost left the Brave a little shell shocked.
With the Mustangs owning their attacking zone and the Brave working overtime on defence, the home side battled to match it with the Mustangs.
It took a goal from the blue line from Brave captain Mark Rummukainen, his first goal for the league’s newest team, to tie the game up once more heading into the second interval.
For a moment, it looked as if the Brave had pulled ahead just before the break if not for an incredible pad save from James.
The shot was so convincing the referee went to call the goal and then waved it off as even the referees couldn’t believe he made the save.
The call-and-response nature of the game continued when the Brave’s David Dunwoodie scored his first goal for the club, only to have it nullified by Viktor Gibbs Sjödin 25 seconds later.
A Scott Pitt goal gave the Brave the edge again, tapping in the easiest of goals after Stephen Blunden did it all himself, entering the zone off a great pass up the centre of the ice, missing the shot, regaining the puck, having a second shot, and seeing a fortunate bounce fall right next to Scott Pitt sitting beside to James’ glove-side post.
When the Mustangs scored the next goal via Jamie Bourke with four minutes remaining, both sides were waiting for a hero.
That hero came in the form of Kelly Geoffrey.
With time ticking down, a diving Geoffrey cleaned up a Blunden shot to give the Brave a second win of the season.
Brave coach Brad Hunt said Geoffrey has been a “revelation” for the team so far and deserved to score the match winner.
“He came out here on his own dime, just wanted a shot and he’s got everything he deserves,” Hunt said. “For a kid that hadn’t played in a couple of years, he’s great on and off the ice.”
Despite the result, Hunt said that there was still plenty to work on.
“We need to follow the systems we train in training,” Hunt said. “We just can’t let guys float around which is what we’re doing. If it wasn’t for Josh [Unice], we wouldn’t have won this game. But he stood on his head as he always does. We’ll talk about it before tomorrow’s game and work on it at training.”
For Vigon, there were plenty of pluses the Mustangs could take out of the game.
“We had tons of great chances but again we came up against a goaltender that was on his game, even though we had probably 75% of the play,” Vigon said. “But at the end of the day you’ve got to score more goals than they do.”
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