Nov 26 Game Preview: Stars vs Xtreme

Every team has hit the ice and played a game. By the end of Friday night each team will have played two. 

We are well and truly under way.

There’s already so much to talk about so let’s jump into previewing this week’s match-up between the Noarlunga Stars and the Adelaide Xtreme.

The Stars (0-0-1, 1 point) return to the ice after having a bye last week while the Xtreme (1-0-0, 2 points) will look to become the first team in NHSL to officially go on a “winning streak” 

TEAM GUIDE – ADELAIDE XTREME

TEAM GUIDE – NOARLUNGA STARS

If you're heading the the game, click here for some key information about procedures at the rink!

If you're watching from home, you can check it out on SBS-on-Demand from 7:00PM

THE SEASON SO FAR

The Stars played in the NHSL opening game on November 12 vs the Port Adelaide Brewers. It was an instant classic. The game had everything – feistiness, great goals, unbelievable goaltending, a comeback, twists, turns and even overtime. 

Unfortunately for the Stars they lost the game 4-3 in OT with just four seconds on the clock remaining. Jake Riley potted two goals and Yoann Levesque had the other. Notably the Stars never trailed during the game until the very last shot. Their power play was 0-9 and they allowed a back-breaking short handed goal with just three minutes left in regulation to have the game sent to overtime.

The Xtreme, meanwhile, looked very impressive in their 5-3 win over the Brewers. They jumped out to an early 2-0 in the first period but it was the second frame that was the most impressive. They outshot their opponent 19-5, won about 75% of the face-offs, never allowed a threatening opportunity on their goaltender, and started to cement the game. The Brewers put up a fight in the third but the Xtreme did just enough to hold them off. Xander Wardlaw had 3 points and Noah Maley had two goals in the opening game. 
 

WHAT TO EXPECT IN THIS GAME

Up-tempo hockey. The Brewers showed they were a very physical team in both the games they played. The Stars like to skate so the Xtreme will have to be able to compete in that department. I would expect this game to be a little more open stylistically than the first two games.

Notable exclusions for this game include Jamie Woodman (Xtreme) who is residing in Perth and will not make the trip for this game. Daniel Chen (underage) remains out of the Stars’ line up until he turns 18 in early December.

THINGS WE WE’RE WATCHING

1. Huxley (Xtreme) vs Harding (Stars): Honestly, this is a South Australian hockey fans dream. David Huxley and Josh Harding manned the Adrenaline blue line together for nearly 250 games. They played on Team Australia together. They played for the Adelaide Blackhawks together. Now they go against each other. They’re stylistically quite different – Harding likes to push the pace of play and Huxley likes that simple structure – but they are great mates and competitors. This should be really fun to watch. It’s like a hockey history viewing experience in one place that we should not take for granted.
    
2. Benson (Xtreme) vs Riley (Stars)…and Benson (Stars): Same as above, but scale it back by 15 years. Nathaniel Benson and Jake Riley have played Australian Junior Teams together, state teams, the Adrenaline and won championships with the Jokers. They were 1-2 in scoring in the Premier League in 2021 while playing on the same line. They have a friendly rivalry and will go toe-to-toe. Shout out to Nathaniel’s brother Tim Benson who plays for the Stars. Brothers going head-to-head is always fun.
    
3. Puck Possession: The Xtreme won 69% of their face-offs in their game vs the Brewers and 76% from the second period onward. Joey MacDougall (Xtreme) only lost one face-off in the second and third combined. When you start a play with the puck that works in your advantage. The Stars will have to respond. That said, Ryan Foll (Stars) was moved over to centre at the start of the season and lost only four face-offs in Week #1 vs the Brewers. Jan Koubek (Stars) and Nathaniel Benson (Xtreme) will take the lion’s share of face-offs too. Intriguing possession battles all around.
    
4. Special Teams:  Win by special teams, lose by special teams. The Stars will be looking for adjustments after going 0-9 on the PP and allowing a shorthanded goal. The Xtreme went 2-4 on the power play and won by two goals in their first game. You do the math.
    
5. Secondary Production: All of the goal scoring for the Stars has come from their top combination of Yoann Levesque – Jan Koubek – Jake Riley. They’ll need someone from outside that top line to hit the score sheet to have a chance in this game. The Xtreme did this well last week, getting goals or opportunities from all three lines.  

GOALTENDER MATCH UPS

Stars: Glen Forbes-White – This is such a relief to see! The 2019 Adrenaline starting goaltender is back between the pipes after suffering a knee injury in the 2021 Premier League playoffs. Glen is one of the goalie coaches in South Australia and a competitor. Head Coach Sami Mantere has total faith in his puck-stopping ability and with good reason – he anchored a very strong Tigers team this season! 

Xtreme: Jeremy Friederich – Jeremy has backstopped the Jokers to back-to-back local league championships with numbers that don’t seem real. This past season he had eight shutouts on his way to a merry 1.42 Goals Against Average and .936 save percentage. He’s talented. He’s confident. He can literally keep his team in games they don’t belong in. Jeremy stopped 26 of 29 pucks that came his way in Week 1. 

A WORD FROM THE COACH…

Eric Lien, head coach of the Xtreme:  

"With the parity in the league we recognise these early games are critical as you want to have points in the standings, we don’t want find ourselves chasing teams in the second half of the season. The win last week was nice but it is in the rear view mirror, our focus turns to a rested Stars team who has had two weeks to work on their systems.

The Stars generate their attack in a different manner compared to the Brewers so if we don’t adapt we will struggle to control the puck and spend most of the night chasing. We must improve our play in the neutral zone as the Stars have shown they can move the puck quickly and are dangerous if they stretch you out.

We anticipate Friday’s game will be another evenly matched contest so we are looking forward to this challenge."

Sami Mantere, head coach of the Stars:

I am really looking forward to our game against the Xtreme this Friday. We’ve looked back the tapes from both last two games, looked at what we did well and what we need to improve. We’ve had some really good practices trying to work on our game and work more on the combinations.

I have to admit it’s been entertaining to hear Xtreme this and Xtreme that. I’m sure they’re a strong team and a hard team to beat but I am sick of hearing about them. Fortunately there’s one way of stopping that talk and that’s beating them on the ice. And I am very confident in our team and if we play how we know we can, we can control the game.

We wanted to bring some veterans to lead by example and some young guns who can prove the hockey world what they can do and there’s no better game than this Friday to show this.

POTENTIAL LINE COMBINATIONS 
 
Stars

Y. Levesque – J. Koubek - J. Riley 
K. Collier – R. Foll – Z. Steele
T. Boyd – L. Harding – J. McDonnell
A. Foster – Q. Tombleson 

J. Harding - C. Smith
T. Benson - J. Hazel
M. Komazec - D. Madsen
K. Sinko

G. Forbes-White
S. Poole

Xtreme

J. Siemens – J. MacDougall – N. Maley
X. Wardlaw – N. Benson – O. Martin
D. Peterson – A. Stapleton – B. Taylor
J. Sarcich – J. Holland

G. Charbonneau – A. Chen
J. Geyer – D. Huxley
T. Tait

J. Friederich
C. Peacock