Friday 3 April 2015

Ice Hockey: Phantoms 'GHOST' Past a Poor Phoenix




MANCHESTER PHOENIX   2      PETERBOROUGH PHANTOMS    5



 
The out-going English Premier League champions the Manchester Phoenix suffered a blank weekend this past week, as defeats on the road at Milton Keynes and then at home to a ruthless Peterborough Phantoms side sees the Phoenix almost certainly now finishing outside the top 5 for the first time since moving to the EPL back in 2009.
Saturday saw a 4-3 loss at Milton Keynes Lightning, where the hosts started on fire after racing into a 2-0 lead that was before the hosts came back and a late goal proved decisive to see MK Lightning come out victors. Sunday Night saw the Phoenix hoping to chase down their nearest rivals in the table, in the Peterborough Phantoms and it started off a fairly physical game with the hosts surprising their opponents with the hits they were putting on them to start with.
Joe Graham a former Phantom himself put a big hit at centre ice on an opposing player that was sent hard to the deck. Early exchanges being the two sides had the game played at like a playoff game tempo, with hard hits and aggressive play. Both sides seemed to cancel the other out and made for a very tight interesting contest after the opening 20 minutes of game. Peterborough came out the quicker in the second, and through it scored the game’s opening goal as Cameron McGriffin’s low drive on net beat everyone, including Manchester netminder Steve Fone to give the Phantoms a 1-0 lead at 21.45 with Edgars Bebris and Dan Weldon with the assists.
Less than a minute later and the scores were tied up again, after Adam Walker netted an equaliser for the hosts with Frankie Bakrlik and Ben Wood picking up assists. From that point onwards it was mainly all one way traffic, with the Phantoms carving the Phoenix up like a turkey at Christmas time. Manchester tried to find shooting lanes on the visitors, but the defensive display by Peterborough did a great job at stifling their play and were hitting the hosts on the break many times.
So come 27.05 into the game and it came as no real surprise to see the Phantoms taking the lead once again, but it was a goal that was beautifully crafted and came from a poor turnover from Robin Kovar on his own blue line. Peterborough who was the more switched on and alert to everything going on, it saw them capitalise on the mistake and after Jason Buckman poked it ahead for a 2-on-0 for the Phantom, it saw Dan Weldon and Edgars Bebris playing a tic-tac-toe move in front of the Manchester nets and saw Bebris finish it off nicely with a lovely goal to move 2-1 in front.
The hosts were being torn apart and it was being caused by the Phoenix D playing a far too high line up the ice and it was allowing the Phantoms to have these 2 on 0’s or 2 on 1 breaks with regularity and it was leading to the host getting in all kinds of trouble. Peterborough continued to exert their pressure on the Phoenix, with the home side wilting under the constant attacks from the Phantoms forwards. The home side was being caught out of position constantly and once more it led to goal as Luke Ferrara made it 3-1 for the visitors, with the goal coming from yet another break from their own zone and saw one the Phantoms Ferrara brothers finding the back of the net, to open up a two goal cushion on their hosts with Milan Baranyk and Slava Koulikov credited with assists.
Manchester looked lost and lacked anything in the way of a cutting edge or ideas to their play and so the way that their opponents was cutting them up with ease, was clearly frustrating the natives. Lithuanian forward Darius Pliskauskas added a fourth for the visitors and that completed a miserable second period for the home side, to which the danger man for the Phantoms saw his shot just get by Fone and see Peterborough go 4-1 up and killed the game off in a sense. With less than thirty seconds to play in the period, it saw Bobby Chamberlain upend netminder Janis Auzins behind his own goals and saw no call coming from it.
However once the period came to an end it had the referee in Andy Miller, giving Bobby Chamberlain and Dan Weldon both ten-minute calls each, with Chamberlain collecting a Roughing call and then Weldon with a Abuse of official penalty all coming at 40.00.  The final period saw the home side come out and attempt to find the Phantoms net and try as they might, they just couldn’t simply find a way past the stubborn defense of the away side.
Janis Auzins proved to be a difficult nut to crack for the Phoenix, as the Latvian shot-stopper kept the puck out of the net with some breathtaking saves from the 37 shots he faced, Including stopping a near certain goal from going in with the handle of his stick to rob the hosts of a goal. James Ferrara then collected a ten minute misconduct call, after the forward argued too much over a penalty to Darius Pliskauskas for Slashing after the forward had punched Frankie Bakrlik after the whistle during a scrum near goals.
Peterborough who had dealt brilliantly with the Manchester forwards all game, now saw them come under fire and despite the Phantoms goal being peppered relentlessly by the home team, it saw the chances coming quickly and was a case of Manchester being unable to finish off and that was the difference between the sides. Bobby Chamberlain finally managed to see the hosts find a second goal, as his tap in at the back post beat Auzins after a Shaun Thompson pass to Robin Kovar was moved quickly and saw the Czech forward find the under-20 star in space and Chamberlain made it 4-2 score to give the Phoenix a sniff of a comeback at 53.29.
The comeback was snuffed out 41 seconds later, when Tom Norton passed up ice to player-coach Slava Koulikov and with two Peterborough players colliding in back play, it seemed to distract the hosts and despite the best attempts of the returning captain in Luke Boothroyd from injury from chasing him down, it saw Koulikov make a move on Fone and beat the goalie for a 5-2 score.
Manchester was playing for pride and despite cutting down the amount of breakaways that was needlessly being given up in the game, especially in the middle stanza. It saw the hosts being shut down by Auzins as he was putting on a master class of goaltending in the final twenty.  Auzins then produced a moment that had the home fans copying, as when the goalie lost his stick and took a puck to the mask, the Latvian netminder started to wave his hands in a kind of Evangelist preacher meets ‘Jazz hands’ motion that had the fans singing and joining in.
With 1.11 left to go in the contest it saw Frankie Bakrlik making it 5-3 and the score really flattered the hosts really, as the home side were never really in the game and saw the travelling Peterborough fans celebrate their sides magnificent victory and the Phantoms third ever win at the Altrincham Ice dome, as they like many others this season have found Phoenix out.
Luke Ferrara took the Man of the Match for the visitors and Johan Burlin took the award for the Phoenix.
Manchester have looked far in away a completely different team to the one that was league champions last year, as this game along with many others before this season, has shown that some aren’t pulling their weight and have looked like individuals than a unit for a majority of the time. Phoenix will now look for redemption next weekend as the take on the Phantoms again but this time down south and will look to bounce back at home in the upcoming British League Cup final 1st leg taking place the Thursday after against the newly crowned Telford Tigers.

No comments:

Post a Comment