Comeback win of the year

The Proski Newcastle Northstars made an incredible comeback on Saturday night, scoring six goals in the third period to win 7-4 against Adelaide Adrenaline.

During the first two periods the Northstars spent a lot of time in front of Adelaide Adrenaline’s net.

Despite making 28 shots on goal, the home side struggled to find the back of the net.

Adelaide goaltender Peter King remained calm under pressure only allowing one goal in, from Newcastle import Joe Harcharik, during the second period.

At the end of the second period, the Northstars trailed Adrenaline 3-1.

The home crowd sounded optimistic that the Northstars could pull the game back and finish with a win, but knew that it would be a hard task against Adrenaline who were putting up a hard fight.

Coach Andrew Petrie spoke about what needed to happen to ensure that the shots found the back of the net.

“The challenge to the boys wasn’t to be more physical, it was to be more accountable with what they do with the puck in the offensive zone,” he said.

“We spent probably 60-70 per cent of the game in their defensive zone, you can’t spend that much time in the defensive zone and not score.

“It’s just not acceptable.

“We needed to be more accountable for our execution, and that’s what we were in the third period.

“Consequently, we saw a lot of shots from clean scoring areas going in.”

The third period saw momentum shift for the Northstars and certainly the home crowd too, with the atmosphere growing inside the rink.

Power forward Zane Jones made his return to the ice on Saturday night and certainly made his presence known.

Late in the third period Jones absolutely levelled Adelaide’s Cam Critchlow in a legal check sending the crowd into a frenzy and the Adelaide bench into an uproar.

The crowd favourite, affectionately known as the Zane Train due to his physical play, enjoyed his return to the ice in front of the home crowd.

“It feels phenomenal to be back on the ice,” he said.

“I pushed it up this week, I wanted to play my first game back this week at home here.

“I think it paid off, it was really fun.

“It was nice to get a win in regulation, it was also nice to throw the body again too.”

Impressed with the effort that he put in upon his return, Petrie spoke about Jones’ determination to get back on the ice.

“Jones did a lot more than we expected him to do, he was supposed to take two or three shifts a period and ease back into it,” Petrie said.

“But that’s kind of like trying to reign in a dinosaur.

“He wants to play and we had some targets that he needed to hit in practices over the last couple of weeks, and he hit them all.

“It’s pretty hard to hold him back at that point.”

The Northstars took to the ice, especially in the third period of Saturday’s match, with a hunger and enthusiasm that seemed to bring the team together.

The team played cohesively and seemed to be able to locate each other on the ice and read the game of play with ease.

“Four games ago we made major adjustments to how we play,” Petrie said.

“All in all, over the last four games I’m really very happy.

“If you look at the record with have we our first 15 games versus the record we have on our last four it’s a shootout loss, a shootout win and two wins.”

It appears that these alterations to the Northstars playing style certainly are paying off.

Next weekend, the Newcastle Northstars travel down to Melbourne to face the Melbourne Mustangs in a double header weekend.

Make sure you follow the games on twitter and the stream and use the #WeAreNewcastle hashtag to show your support for the boys.