Sydney Ice Dogs @ Newcastle Northstars
These percentages are a prediction based on each team's Elo rating, a score that goes up after wins and down after losses. You can check how this is calculated below.
How this probability was calculated
Newcastle Northstars gets a small bonus for playing at home. A big win raises a team's rating more than a close one does, and overtime or shootout wins count for less, since the game was still tied when regular time ended. Ratings update after every game, so each team's recent form is already built into the number you see here.
What a Win Means
Sydney Ice Dogs
A win here would lift Sydney Ice Dogs from 6th to 5th, on 42 points. They'd stay inside the top 6. Right now, Sydney Ice Dogs are given a 56% chance of making the finals. That depends on Ice too: so much as an overtime or shootout loss from their own game would keep them above Sydney Ice Dogs at 42 pts - anything less and the move to 5th holds.
Newcastle Northstars
A win here would keep Newcastle Northstars at 1st, on 56 points. They'd stay inside the top 6. Right now, Newcastle Northstars are given a 100% chance of making the finals. It would put a 6-point buffer between them and second-placed Mustangs, assuming Mustangs's own result doesn't close it.
Head-to-head this season
| Date | Away | Score | Home |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sun 21 Jun, 2026 | Newcastle Northstars | 6–3 | Sydney Ice Dogs |
| Sun 14 Jun, 2026 | Sydney Ice Dogs | 6–3 | Newcastle Northstars |
In-Form Players
| # | Top Forwards | PTS | Form (L10) | Lg Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Kale Costa | 49 | #16 | |
| 42 | Dmitri Kuleshov | 31 | #33 | |
| 51 | Daniel Chen | 28 | #37 |
| # | Top Defence | PTS | Form (L10) | Lg Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 94 | David D'Agostino | 26 | #42 | |
| 97 | Kabore Dunn | 26 | #44 | |
| 5 | Daniel Pataky | 8 | #119 |
| # | Goalies | SV% | GP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 88 | Ryan Burroughs | 0.903 | 22 |
| 31 | Ryo Murakami | 0.871 | 5 |
| # | Top Forwards | PTS | Form (L10) | Lg Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 | Evgenii Skachkov | 69 | #1 | |
| 20 | santeri haarala | 67 | #4 | |
| 17 | Francis Drolet | 40 | #22 |
| # | Top Defence | PTS | Form (L10) | Lg Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | Akihide Watanabe | 40 | #23 | |
| 77 | Ethan Hawes | 17 | #71 | |
| 10 | Aziz Baazzi | 13 | #90 |
| # | Goalies | SV% | GP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 32 | Matus Trnka | 0.893 | 24 |
| 75 | Matthew Montgomery | 0.000 | 7 |
How Elo ratings work
Elo is a rating system first made for chess, and it works just as well for ranking hockey teams. Every team starts the season with a rating of 1500. After each game, the winner's rating goes up and the loser's rating goes down. The size of the change depends on how surprising the result was. Beating a much stronger team gains more points than beating a weaker one, and losing to a weaker team costs more points than losing to a stronger one.
Here's how AIHL Forecaster calculates its ratings. The home team gets a +35 point bonus before each game, since playing at home is a real advantage in hockey. A win in regular time earns extra points if the margin was large, up to a cap, so a blowout moves the rating more than a one-goal win. Overtime and shootout results only shift the rating a small amount, since both teams were still tied when regular time ended. Ratings are recalculated after every single game, so a team's Elo rating always reflects its most recent form, not just its overall record.