Weekend Preview: Thunder v Sydney Bears

The Perth Thunder are set for their final home game of the 2016 AIHL season, and the penultimate weekend of the regular season as they play host to the Sydney Bears on Saturday and Sunday, August 13-14.

With two wins last weekend, including one over the Bears, the Thunder assured themselves of a place in the 2016 AIHL Finals series with four games still remaining in the season.

Where exactly the Thunder will finish within the top four remains to be seen, and the Thunder could potentially finish in top position or fourth spot, dependent upon other results in the coming weeks, and six points this weekend will go a long way towards securing 'home' ice advantage in the finals.

Again it was the import line that impressed for the Thunder last weekend, with Michael Dorr, Jessyko Bernard and Ben Breault all finding the back of the net, but it was the continued upturn in form of diminutive defenceman Rob Haselhurst that proved the biggest factor for the Thunder.

Haselhurst tallied four points on the weekend (1G, 3A) to take his recent four-game point streak up to eight (2G, 6A) and his season tally to 16 points (5G, 11A), good enough for fourth place in team point-scoring.

Thomas Heemskerk continued to impress in net, with his unbeaten weekend now seeing him lead the leadue in wins (17) and save percentage (.924), while he ranks third in goals against average (2.63).

The Bears come across to Perth amidst a late-season slump, having won only one of their past eight games dating back to early July, with two of those losses coming at the hands of the Thunder.

The Bears were a team in finals contention before the slump, and the Thunder will have to be wary of Tomas Landa and Michael Schlamp, who have both registered three points in the two games against the Thunder, while Landa leads his team in points (33).

The Bears are also backstopped by Mighty Roos goaltender Anthony Kimlin, who returned to the AIHL this season on the back of his gold medal-winning performance at the IIHF World Championships in April.

MATCH INFORMATION
When: Saturday and Sunday, 4.30pm AWST
Where: Perth Ice Arena, Marshall Road, Malaga
Tickets: https://www.trybooking.com/KMDV
Stream: http://mixlr.com/perththunder (audio only, no stream Saturday due to Foxtel game of the week)