The Dunedin Thunder moved into third place in the national league with two wins against the West Auckland Admirals at the weekend.
It beat the Admirals 5-4 in a thriller at the Dunedin Ice Stadium on Saturday night, backing that up with a convincing 5-1 win yesterday.
After starting the weekend at the bottom of the standings with just two wins from eight games, the wins kept the Thunder's slim final hopes alive.
Thunder forward Shaun Harrison opened the scoring in yesterday's win, when he slid a shot past Admirals goalie Rick Parry nine minutes into the match.
Captain Paris Heyd assisted the goal with a deft pass to Harrison, who made no mistake in putting the puck into the back of the net.
Finnish import Hannu Harju made sure the Thunder took advantage of a power play midway through the second quarter by scoring his team's second goal.
It was not pretty, but Harju flicked the loose puck into the goal after Parry failed to tidy up a couple of saves.
It appeared Admirals forward and league leading scorer Tom Tracy had scored with seven seconds left in the second period, only for officials to rule the goal out due to an early whistle.
To rub salt in the wound, Tracy received a 10 minute penalty for showing dissent. Thunder goalie Jakub Pyrochta had another immense game, rebuffing shot after shot.
However, Admirals forward Nick Henderson finally got one past him with 12 minutes to go, when he caught the Thunder defence napping from a face off.
But defender Arthur Cocar, who is French, scored a few minutes later to earn back a two goal buffer.
Cocar stole the puck inside the attacking zone, before playing a nice 1-2 with Heyd and lashing the puck past Parry.
Joseph Orr and Cocar then added further goals to kill off the Admirals, avenging the two losses to the Admirals in Auckland earlier in the season.
The Southern Stampede set a league record for consecutive wins against the defending champion Canterbury Red Devils in Christchurch at the weekend.
Saturday night's 7-4 win was the Stampede's ninth straight win to start the season, breaking the record streak of eight consecutive wins held by both the Stampede and Red Devils.
However, the league leader's streak ended at nine after the Red Devils won last night's second match of the doubleheader 4-3 in overtime.
