Newcastle Northstars go down 4-3 to Canberra then beat Central Coast Rhinos 13-3 in AIHL: 2023

Newcastle travelled to Canberra to duel with the Brave in Australian Ice Hockey League action on Saturday night before returning to host the Rhinos at Hunter Ice Skating Stadium in their first home game of the 2023 campaign.

After a see-sawing affair in Canberra, new import Josh Adkins secured his first AIHL goal to have Newcastle up 1-0 at the end of the first period. Patrick Nadin made it 2-0 before Matthew Harvery scored twice for the Brave to have the score tied at 2-2 heading into the final period.

Canberra's Felix Plouffe and Kai Miettinen gave the hosts a 4-2 advantage before Zane Jones pulled one back for the visitors.

"Our start and our end to the game, we were pretty good on urgency and the way we needed to play in dictating our pace," Noble said on Saturday night.

"But in long stretches at times we got out-worked and we got away from being direct and creating net-front pressure to allow us to create more scoring chances.

"We out-shot them significantly in the game but I didn't really like our game. For the most part we didn't really get to our game and we didn't compete hard enough. It was disappointing because I think we gifted them a win, not to take anything away from them."

On Sunday, Newcastle led 3-1 at the first break then were up 8-2 heading into the final period with the goals shared around.

Wehebe Darge, Ethan Hawes and Francis Drolet all scored for Newcastle in the first period. Daniel Berno, Hawes, Adkins, Jones and Shane Southwood added goals in the second.

Berno got his second in the final period while Drolet added two more and Adkins and Southwood scored again.

The Northstars are in Perth next Saturday before hosting the Rhinos again on May 20.