MANCHESTER PHOENIX 11 - 0 PETERBOROUGH PHANTOMS
The Manchester Phoenix made it yet another 4 point weekend with victories over the Swindon Wildcats and Peterborough Phantoms with them completing two shutouts in both games. Saturday seen the Phoenix travel down to Wiltshire and come back with the 2points as they beat the Wildcats 4-0 as they put four goal past arguably the best goaltender in the EPL, goals came goals for Manchester came from Player-Coach Tony Hand and the Czech trio of Michal Psurny, Rob Schnabel and Frankie Bakrlik as the Phoenix made it 5 wins from 5 games.
Sunday`s game against the Peterborough Phantoms was
another complete performance by the Manchester outfit as they outclassed, outworked
and out muscled their opponents for the full 60 minutes after they dismantled
the East Anglian side 11-0 at home at the Silver Blades Ice rink in Altrincham.
From
the drop of the puck both teams played an even steven game at first, but it
would quickly become clear that Phoenix held the upper hand in the contest as their
devastating attacking prowess in this game would be unleashed with their
forward`s showing what they can do when they click. Phoenix controlled a
majority of the first period as Peterborough weren`t allowed to get any kind of
foothold in the game at all, as the Phantoms had been involved in a bruising home
win against the Bracknell Bees the night before and the match seemed to have
took a bit out of them.
Phoenix
showed they were a physical side too as the home side was finishing off their
checks on their visitors with ex-Phantom player Richard Bentham laying a stiff
hard check on Peterborough forward Marc Levers in the Phantoms zone which saw Levers
hit the ice hard.
Robert
Kovar went close to opening the scoring for the home side, but he was denied by
Damien King between the pipes for the Peterborough side as the young netminder
faced a lot of rubber from Manchester, with his defense not helping him much in
the game. At the other end of the rink, Manchester Phoenix netminder Steve Fone
who was fresh from his shutout win against Swindon the night before nearly got
embarrassed when Slovakian forward Erik Piatak blocked a Fone clearance and the
puck just trickled past the Phoenix nets and got cleared away. Peterborough
nets was being peppered by the Phoenix attack with Czech forward Michal Psurny
and Bentham both coming close for the home side.
All
the pressure the Phoenix were putting onto Peterborough finally told when Andy
McKinney and Richie Bentham combined the nets before Bentham put the puck out
front for the incoming Liam Chong to skate onto and up it high up in the
Phantoms nets for deserved 1-0 lead at 8:45. James Archer had a deflected shot
nearly catch King out with the netminder making a save to stop another
ex-Phantom from doubling the score.
Phoenix
was creating a heck of a lot of chances, yet the home side just couldn`t quite
find the finishing touch that was need to score. Then at 13:05 Phoenix forward
Jack Watkins flew down the left wing before skating freely in the Peterborough
zone and finished off with a back handed flick to put the puck home over King
shoulder from a tight angle as it bounce in and out, after a littles hesitation
with the goal judge and the referee a goal was awarded eventually to Watkins,
Robert Kovar and Frankie Bakrlik was credited with assists on the 2nd goal.
Frankie
Bakrlik then went to the box for the first penalty of the game at 13:46 when he
was called for Cross Checking on one of the Ferrara brother`s as he sent him
crashing to the boards and the Phantom wasn`t very happy either with the
incident. Peterborough did try to get into the game, the only problem was that
Phoenix was in another gear to their guests as they played a fantastic style of
hockey.
Manchester
looked comfortable on the penalty kill and so when time ticked down on the Bakrlik
'Cross Checks' penalty, the puck was cleared from the Phoenix zone and bounced off
the boards near the penalty box and just as the penalty happened to expire,
Bakrlik race out of the box and took the puck forwards and fired it top far
corner on King for a great goal at 15:45, with McKinney setting the playing up.
For the remainder of the opening period Phoenix controlled the period and
Peterborough was just unable to deal with the home side attack.
In
the Second stanza Phoenix kept the high tempo up and that pressure paid off,
when two Phantoms defensemen had a fail on their own blue line which resulted
in Bakrlik pinching the puck off them and then skate unopposed into the
Phantoms zone and fired home from the slot for a 4-0 score line after 23:00.
Phoenix
was cutting through the Peterborough defences with ease as King was left hung
out to dry so often for the visitors, as they tried to forced their way back
into the contest but they just couldn`t get to grips with the home side at all
as it was becoming embarrassingly easy for Phoenix. To be fair though on
Peterborough, they put up a brave effort for the first period and half of the
second, before Manchester went through the gears and went onto dominate the
game from then on.
Peterborough
forwards were taking shots at distance which saw Phoenix netminder Steve Fone
save every shot the visitors put on net as they weren`t troubling Fone at all,
at the other end Phoenix was shooting at will at Damien King who must have felt
like he was a one man team at times.
Czech
forward Michal Psurny made it 5-0 for the home side at 31:58 when Joe Graham
passed to the Zlin native and he blasted it in at the near post to beat King.
.jpg) |
| Players stand back as Andy McKinney tangles with Greg Pick |
From the restart Greg Pick started a fight with Andy McKinney who both dropped
the gloves and helmet and the build up lasted longer than the actual fight it`s
self, Pick thrown a few punches which didn`t connect, McKinney then threw some
bombs too which had one catch Pick and McKinney got the take down for the
narrow win with both picking up 2+2 for Roughing.
A
few minutes later Phoenix were still creating chance upon chance as the goal
judge put the light on when Kovar at the front of the net managed to somehow
lift it over the goals from close range, however goals were always likely for
Phoenix as they were tearing them apart with the Phantoms leaving lots of gaps
at the back which saw quite a few breakaways.
Goal
6 came in the shape of Frankie Bakrlik scoring at 34:26 with James Neil passing
up ice to the Czech forward and Bakrlik laser beam beat King to complete his
hat trick and pile the agony on Peterborough, with them looking down and out
now and completely out of ideas. For the Phantoms the shipping of goals was not
over in this period as they conceded a seventh goal when James Archer came back
to 'Haunt' his old employers, as he was first onto a loose puck at the front of
goals and he scored from close range with Tony Hand & Joe Graham assisting
at 38:10.
In
the final period of play Manchester Phoenix player-coach Tony Hand decided to
coach from the bench and gave some precious ice time to back up netminder Jorge
El-Hage.
At
45:06 Michal Psurny scored for the home side to make it 8-0 with McKinney and
Captain Luke Boothroyd grabbing assists on the goal for a thrashing now. Peterborough
then won a penalty shot when Erik Piatak was upended when through on goal by
Luke Boothroyd and Pering awarded a penalty shot to the Phantoms. From the
resulting penalty shot El-Hage denied Piatak who took the shot himself as the
goaltender made sure he preserved the round number in the away side column.
Jaroslav
Cesky who was seen as the main attacking threat for the Phantoms had gone
missing for the away team in this game, but he managed to pick up a 10 minute
misconduct penalty for abuse of official after he complained to referee Pering
about something off the play.
 |
| El-Hage denies Piatak a goal from a Penalty shot |
Manchester
got back to scoring ways, when Robert Kovar got on the score sheet from some good
play by Bakrlik to hold off the Phantoms defensemen as he shielded the puck,
before passing to Kovar who put the puck in the net with some nifty stick work
and then back handed it for a 9-0 score at 52:48. Bakrlik then scored a well taken
goal as he received a pass from Rob Schnabel and the Czech forward collected
the pass faced goal and fired in his fourth goal of the game, to make it double
figures for the home side at 54:34 with James Neil getting the 2nd assist on
the goal to make it 10-0.
The
scoring was completed in the game when Schnabel set up the man who had started
the scoring off and also finished the scoring off too in Liam Chong, as the forward
turned and shot at King and saw his effort go in for 11-0 at 55:20 as the home
side could easily have scored 20 in this game, as they were so dominant as,
which was helped by Peterborough playing poor too.
.jpg) |
| Phoenix defence nets from rare Phantoms pressure |
With
over the minute of play left in the third, Phoenix were caught with 'too many
men on the ice so they finished off with a man down, but Phoenix earned a
second Shut-out in two days as they stayed top of the league in the EPL table
after 6 games gone, but it`s early days yet in the league but will be a marker
for how they will want to play for the season for sure.
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