Northstars defeat Ice Dogs at home

---

 
The Northstars welcomed another capacity crowd to Hunter Ice Skating Stadium on Saturday night and gave them a lot to cheer for defeating the visiting Ice Dogs 8-2.
 
Goals from Shane Southwood and Daniel Berno gave the home team an early lead with a late goal from Ice Dogs Connor Lee late in the period to go to the break one goal apart.
 
Dmitri Kuleshov opened the scoring in period two equalising the game. With the crowd behind them, Northstars’ Riley Klugerman secured two goals and one each for Wehebe Darge and Patrick Nadin but the home team was ahead once again.
 
Francis Drolet helped secure the win with two unanswered goals in the third period.
 
“In every game, you know you’re going to have to push back from the other team, but our guys put their gear on and played hard. I think at times we get frustrated and when they apply pressure, but tonight, for the most part, we did a good job of bending and limiting their changes,” shared Head Coach Kevin Noble.
 
“Some of those penalties tonight were deserved, some of them were our own doing, and we’ve got to clean those ones up, but we certainly need to find some consistency”
 
“Our PK (penalty kill) has been very good, and it has been good for most of the year. Our guys have bought into killing in a structure and being disruptive, but we’ve got to stay out of the box and find ways to limit the option for penalties, and everyone has to get better.”
 
“In the last couple of games, we’ve been very good with our detail defensively.”
 
We face the Melbourne Ice on Sunday - “That was a rough tip for us down there at the start of the year, and they gave us a hard game. They’ll be a hard test for us tomorrow, and I think we’ve gotten a lot better since then as a team. They can say the same thing, so we’ll be in for a tough game.”
 
“As much as people like to think no matter where anybody is in the standings at times, anybody can win on any given night, so we all have to be ready as they’ll bring their best tomorrow.”
 
Northstars Captain Liam Manwarring  reflected on the game, “It’s good when we can put three points in the bank, and they’re all very important now.”
 
“Our first 20 minutes was pretty flat from us, and we had to lift because they obviously came to play as everyone does when they come here in front of a sell-out crowd, but I think we lifted once again, and we got the job done once again.”
 
“I think Charlie was really, really strong tonight. He showed the league why he’s one of the best goaltenders in the country tonight.”
 
“We’ve been working on the penalty kill a lot more than we’d like to this season, and that’s credit to the coaches for the systems they have put in place for us to have a really successful penalty kill and we’ve worked on that a lot leading into this weekend and it paid off tonight.”
 
“I say it every home game, we have the best fans in the league. This year has just gotten bigger than ever and our games are the hottest thing in town. Our fans make us ride with them in the momentum that they kick off and we’re so lucky to have such a good fan base. This place is the best place to play in the league by far.”