The ladder leading Newcastle Northstars are set to be without Dominik Gabaj for up to two months after the Slovakian import broke his thumb playing in the Australian Ice Hockey League on the weekend.
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The injury was confirmed on Sunday and Northstars officials are awaiting further scans this week to survey the extent of the damage.
Gabaj went down early in the opening period of Saturday's 4-1 win over the Melbourne Ice at Warners Bay and missed the next day's 3-2 loss, the first of Newcastle's otherwise perfect 2019 campaign, to the Melbourne Mustangs at the same venue.
The week before Gabaj scored hat-tricks in back-to-back matches in Adelaide to put himself on top of the league's individual ranks with 18 points (goals and assists) in total.
"It's a shame because he's been playing so well," Northstars coach John Kennedy Jnr said.
"The X-rays have come back as a broken thumb so we'll have a closer look at some more scans this week before trying to work on getting 100 percent.
"In the meantime we will try and fill his space for the next six-to-eight weeks."
Newcastle got the job done against the Ice in game one of the weekend's double header with Kennedy praising the "amazing" work of goalkeeper Dayne Davis, who stopped 23 of 24 shots on net.
Sammy Banga scored a hat-trick for the hosts in Saturday's game.
From his efforts on the ice across the weekend, Banga has taken the lead in the league's scoring ladder with 23 points. Gabaj is third.
"We showed a lot of intensity, spirit and grit," Kennedy said of Saturday's game.
Newcastle's seven-game winning streak came to an end on Sunday. However, they still sit at the top of the AIHL ladder.
In his final game in front of a Newcastle crowd, Czech-born import Ondrej Smach scored the Northstars first goal of the night, in the third period, to make it a 1-2 game. Smach will head back home after this weekend to pick up his commitments with professional teams in Europe.
A final goal from the Northstars, coming from Banga, wrapped up the night but it was not enough to answer to Mustangs' three goals of the night.
"We just ran out of time," Kennedy said.
The Northstars take on the same teams next round but in Melbourne, facing the Mustangs on Saturday and the Ice on Sunday.
