The league leading Melbourne Ice took all the spoils in the third Melbourne Derby of the year, outscoring the Melbourne Mustangs 3-1 at O’Brien Group Arena on Saturday night.

After a 30-minute delay following a Mustangs shot shattering the glass during the warm up, it was a battle throughout, with the Ice scoring two late goals to take the win.

While the score line suggests the victory came easy for the Ice, the on-ice action suggested anything but that in the early going, with plenty of physicality on display.

That intensity was what saw the Ice finally breach a strong Mustangs defence, back-stopped by Fraser Carson, who showed some fine form throughout the early going.

Jason Baclig was the man to take advantage, going top shelf on the Mustangs goaltender after a well-worked pass.

Melbourne Ice Head Coach Brent Laver only had praise for Carson post-game after facing more than double the shots his Ice counterpart faced - 35-17.

“Fraser [Carson] was great; good on him,” he stated.

“We’ve just got to take our chances in those tight games,” he added, pointing out his team’s ability to control the game in the early going, but not net more than the one early goal.

Mustangs Captain Pat O’Kane was nearly slotted an equaliser for the Mustangs five minutes later but while Troy Davenport made a strong save, the puck fell for Jamie Bourke to latch onto the rebound to draw the score level.

From there, the intensity didn’t die down so much as the goaltenders and defensive work stepped up.

Both teams found players spending time in the penalty box in a gritty and determined second period effort, with neither side able to take the powerplay advantage and score the go-ahead goal.

With the goal frame and Carson proving impenetrable, Danish forward Lasse Lassen somehow found a gap for the Melbourne Ice with just under six minutes remaining in the third, finally netting a go-ahead goal from the edge of the Mustangs crease after some swift puck control behind their net.

Not willing to surrender a derby that easily, the Mustangs found themselves bravely denied by Davenport and the pipe as the final period wound down, before an empty net goal eventually ended their hopes with Tommy Powell adding another goal to his tally.

Mustangs Head Coach Michael Flaherty was keen to impress that his side performed well, but they need to increase their chances.

“The goal we scored was a rebound, traffic in front, a scramble,” Flaherty said. “We’ve got to do that all the time. We do need to take more shots on goal.”

“We played well; the boys did what we wanted them to do. They [the players] stuck to what we asked them to and for the most part it worked.”

“Even though the score says two goals, it was a one-goal game – we’ve got to do a better job of making sure we make the most of our opportunities.”

The Ice were pleased with the result again with Laver praising a resilient performance.

“We were pretty happy in the end that we were fairly dominant even though we weren’t at our best. I thought they were chasing us a lot,” Brent Laver said.

“They’re a dogged team, so we knew they were going to come hard,” he added, reflecting on another hard-fought derby match-up.

The Mustangs travel to Adelaide to take on the Adrenaline next weekend, while the Ice have next weekend off before visiting Canberra the following week.