Dayne Davis put on a goaltending masterclass, Matt Wetini scored the game-winning goal and the Newcastle Northstars grabbed a 4-3 victory over the Melbourne Mustangs, in an action-packed game at O’Brien Icehouse on Saturday night.

The victory saw the Northstars avenge the loss to the Mustangs the previous week in Newcastle.

Newcastle were without both Richard Tesarik and Dominic Gabaj, who underwent surgery earlier in the week on a broken thumb sustained during the previous game.

The Mustangs had the ascendancy early in the first period however, it was Newcastle who jumped out to an early lead and stunned the Melbourne faithful.

Francis Drolet opened the scoring for the Northstars on the power play, when he burst through three Mustangs players and beat Jaden Pine-Murphy through the five-hole to make it 1-0, just 5 minutes in.

Then just moments later, Tomas Landa threw a puck on net which deflected off of the skates of Mustangs’ defenceman Andrew Erzen and ended up in the back of the net, and suddenly it was a 2-0 hockey game.

The Mustangs couldn’t get their edge back despite outshooting the Northstars in the first period. Max Parent and Christian Isackson both had good chances for the home side, but couldn’t beat Dayne Davis.

That was until Sean Jones broke the impasse and tallied for Melbourne with his third of the season, making it 2-1 with 6:35 to play.

It ended with that exact score line after the first frame. Shots were 12-6 in favour of the Mustangs.

The second period started off similar to the first with the Mustangs coming out with energy, but they ran into some hot goaltending by Davis. Jordan Owens and Parker Thomas both had opportunities for the Mustangs but failed to capitalise.

It would be Landa who would get the lone goal of the period, when an outlet pass from Patrick Nadin found Landa behind the Mustangs defence. Landa skated in on the breakaway and beat Pine-Murphy upstairs to extend the Northstars lead to 3-1.

It was Landa’s third of the season and the Northstars looked like they were starting to pull away from the Mustangs after two periods.

The third period saw the game start to open up and also saw plenty of hard hits, with Rob Malloy laying out Jack McCoy at the half-wall and Wetini up-ending Jamie Bourke at the blueline with an old-school hip check.

The Northstars struck again with 10:54 left. Drolet centred the puck to a waiting Matt Wetini, who tapped the puck past Pine-Murphy for the Northstars 4^th goal and it appeared to be game over with 10:54 remaining in regulation. It was Wetini’s first goal of the 2019 AIHL season and the first since his last game for Newcastle in August 2018.

However, the Mustangs staged a late comeback to put the three points back up for grabs.

Isackson found a chink in the armor of David to pull the score back to 4-2 with 6:10 to go. The Mustangs pulled Pine-Murphy for the extra attacker with two minutes to go and it paid divdends, with a shot from Michael McMahon taking a deflection off of a sprawling Matt Anderson, to make it 4-3 with 1:19 to go.

However, the Northstars held on through the Mustangs’ final stand to take the win 4-3 and remain atop the AIHL standings with 24 points from 9 games.

Coach John Kennedy was happy with his team’s performance despite the late surge from the Mustangs.

“They came out firing in the first but we knew they were going to do that,” Kennedy said.

“Dayne Davis made the big saves and we found a way to put the puck in the net and found a way to win tonight.”

Kennedy was also impressed by Malloy’s play.

“He really stepped up tonight and he’s arguably the best captain in Australia. When you have guys like that on your team you always have confidence in their play.”

Davis stopped 38 of 41 shots in the win while Pine-Murphy saved 20 from 24.

The Northstars take on the Melbourne Ice at the O’Brien Icehouse on Sunday afternoon, while the Mustangs will face the Ice in the Melbourne Derby on Friday 31^st May.