ICE HOCKEY: Tigers pounce in overtime thriller

                         

Manchester Phoenix         2          3     Telford Tigers 

 (after Overtime)   

The Reigning EPL (English Premier League) champions the Manchester Phoenix came up just short in an absolute barnburner of a game at the Altrincham Ice dome on Sunday night as they fell to the big spending Telford Tigers in overtime. 
Manchester have been experiencing a somewhat up and down start to their season so far and with some injuries to key players not particularly helping their cause either, though victories over the last couple of weeks in the shape of NIHL (National Ice Hockey League) sides the Billingham Stars and the Blackburn Hawks had seemed to inject some confidence in the side and they hoped they could transform cup form into league form against the league leaders.

Manchester came out on fire from the opening face-off and put on without doubt, their best period display of the season to date with a fantastic team effort. The Phoenix gave a stern test to their visitors the Telford Tigers, with the home side having the Tigers defence in knots a fair few times in the opening period and was their first test against their title rivals at home. 

 Tom Murdy between the pipes for the visitors was always equal to the home attack and he denied the hosts with some key saves that would otherwise have ended up in the back of the net normally. Telford's attack was dealt with brilliantly by the home side as the visitors never had a sniff in the opening 20 minutes of play, with the forwards back checking to help out their team-mates and looked solid throughout.

Manchester`s defense has been found wanting on many occasions this season so far but a solid shift by Joe Graham and fellow Nottingham-born defenseman James Neil, saw the pair making important plays in the back line.  Phoenix had been knocking more and more upon the Tigers door yet they just weren't able to beat Murdy as the netminder made save after save stopping the puck.  The hosts general play was easy on the eye and the only thing missing was a goal, that all changed then at 15-15 in the game when a quick passing move saw Captain Luke Boothroyd and Michal Psurny set up Adam Walker, who converted from close range to give the champions a deserved lead for 1-0.

Manchester carved out many chances in the opening period and saw some sublime pieces of passing and team play, that really should have seen the Phoenix a couple goals up. Telford in their offensive play was limited to their shots coming from the outside mainly, where the home defence really was well and truly on top of one of the most lethal strike forces in the league. 

The period came to an end and saw the hosts go into the first break a goal up and was very deserving of that lead due to their superb defensive and attacking play, that would have had many teams in trouble.

In the second period it saw a more even game, with the Tigers starting to feel their way back into the match as a Max Birbraer blast found the hot glove of Steve Fone and where the Phoenix netminder looked focus  in the game and letting the opposition know that the hosts were up for a battle in this game and would be a tough nut to crack.

Fone was on call (no pun intended) for the hosts in the middle stanza, with the Telford forwards beginning to find their rhythm finally and looked a much stiffer outfit than the one in the first. In truth Telford didn't really play that badly at all it was just mainly that Manchester played at a much higher tempo and executed their game plan better and was something the visitors didn`t deal with it.

Luke Boothroyd then almost gave the Tigers a great chance at coming back in the game early in the second, as the Phoenix captain started an attack from behind his own goal and then lost an edge skating out towards the front of his own goals and saw the defenceman hit the deck, but had Telford unable to capitalise on the slip up so to speak, with the home side rescuing the situation. 

 Telford`s travelling support was making their voices heard in the far corner of the rink as they tried to push their side on as they looked to get back into the contest. At 32-24 that was just what happened, when play down by the corner saw both sides fighting for the puck and when Jason Silverthorn gained possession of it he fired home from the tightest of angles and managed to somehow beat Fone at his near post tying the game at 1-1.

Telford then began to edge play and saw them starting to have the momentum swinging their way with the closing stages of the period fastly approaching. With less than a minute of play to go it saw the Tigers go on quick rush with Peter Szabo skating on goal before then making a drop pass to former Phoenix man Joe Miller and the Welshman was stopped by Fone, play then quickly went up the opposite way where Psurny cleared to Tony Hand and his pass from his own zone found Frantisek Bakrlik, whose wrist shot found the top shelf to beat Tom Murdy and have the home side regain the lead with 30 seconds left on the period.

In the 3rd period a tightly contested match ebbed and flowed between the two sides which had both teams having chances early on, Phoenix then reverted to their old ways in defence and left a huge gap at the back after being caught out far too high up the ice too often that then led to a 2 on 1 break for Telford and saw them make full use of it.  Joe Miller broke down the left side and then passed across goal and the evading block of Boothroyd to see Silverthorn net his second goal of the game with a simple tap in at the backdoor with Fone pulled out of position to draw level for the second time.

The leaders then thought they had gone 3-2 ahead in the match very soon after, when Jason Silverthorn put the puck in the net only to see the goal washed-out by match official Steve Brown who had ruled that Peter Szabo performed a hand pass in the lead to the goal being scored. 

From the replays the match official called it correctly and despite Silverthorn trying in vain to argue his case against it being a no-goal, it fell on deaf ears.  Telford grew more in the contest with the Phoenix seemingly showing tiredness in their play and led to them making a couple of mistakes, one of which led to the Tigers tying goal. 
Steve Fone then made a string of top draw saves to stop thwart the Tigers attack performing a double save whilst on a penalty kill that saw him stopping a near certain goal from Sam Zajac and then a rebound off Silverthorn to keep the game level at 2-2.

Both teams were unable to find the winning goal in regulation so the game headed to an overtime period to see who take the extra point on offer and take one off their rivals. Phoenix tried to find some energy from their reserved for the extra period as the short benched champions were hanging on for the final five minutes of the game and wished they had the luxury of extra men on their bench something that the visitors had.
Phoenix though did start the brighter of the two sides and had a couple of chances on Murdy, but nothing that was really going to trouble the Tigers goaltender in reality.

With the scoreboard signalling less than a minute of play to go in overtime, it saw an attempted clearance by Bakrlik knocked down towards the middle of Phoenix zone where upon Jason Silverthorn was fed by Dan Davies and the former Hull Stingray had enough time to flip it high up into the Phoenix net for the game winner and saw the Tigers beat the champions 3-2.

Steve Fone won Man of the Match for the home side as the Phoenix number one, played an absolute blinder to keep his side in the game late on, of that there is no doubt.
His team mates certainly tired towards the middle of the third and that loss means now that Fone has recorded only one win on home ice this season for the Phoenix and will be something he is keen to turn around. 

 For Telford it sees them opening up a 4 point gap at the top of the EPL table and for Manchester, it`s a case of dropping more points against their rivals and are now 10 points behind the leaders with a game in hand.

Phoenix will look to bounce back to winning ways this coming Thursday night at the Ice dome, when they take on the rejuvenated  and surprised package in the league this season the Peterborough Phantoms, Phantoms currently occupy third place in the table and sees Manchester sitting in sixth position two points behind the Guildford Flames and will be a tough game for the Phoenix as well.