MANCHESTER PHOENIX 5- 4 TELFORD TIGERS
( AFTER OVERTIME )
ARCHER 3x , HAND, PSURNY DAVIES , KUULUVAINEN , ROSE , KIVIRANTA
This past weekend saw the English Premier League come to a conclusion in the
regular season and saw the newly crowned EPL Champions the Manchester Phoenix,
prove why they were worthy winners of the crown this year after picking up two tough
wins against the Peterborough Phantoms on the road and then the Telford Tigers
at home.
Saturday saw the League
Champions travel down to the east of England and face off against the
Peterborough Phantoms, which is a traditionally a very difficult place to try
and get a result at.
Phoenix battled back
in the game twice, after Luke Ferrara had put the hosts 1-0 up after 8 minutes
of play that was before Robin Kovar equalised for the away side for 1-1 in the
16th minute.
Phantoms took the
lead once more in the game with Lithuanian forward Darius Pliskauskas netting at
the back end of the second period, to see Phoenix trail once again.
Michal Psurny then
fired in the visitors second goal to see Manchester level it all up a two and had
another Czech player in the form of Frantisek Bakrlik who helped claim the two
points for the road side, as they won it in Overtime.
Sunday evening in
front of a big crowd at the Altrincham ice dome witnessed Manchester having to
show their resiliency in a dead rubber game to come back against the Telford Tigers
as they came back from a two goal deficit.
The game started off
with the Phoenix coming hard and saw Telford almost backing off from the physical
play in the early stage of the game in what was a nothing game for both sides,
However that seemed to change a bit when Former Phoenix man Scott McKenzie,
took a big hit and stayed down from it to which at that point seen the Tigers
upped their game a bit more.
It was a fairly open
game between the two sides and definitely had an end of season feel about it
during periods of the game.
The game opening goal
of the game came against the run of play with Phoenix being the most
threatening side in the contest, with Tigers netminder Declan Ryan having yet
another of his blinding games for Telford against Manchester.
Telford`s opener came
from a big error by Ben Wood when the defender tried to play the puck out through
the middle of the defensive zone and his poor clearance fell perfectly onto Dan
Davies stick, which then saw the forward skating freely on goal and fired over
Steve Fone glove for the 1-0 lead at 7-44.
Manchester who was by
far the aggressors in the opening twenty minutes of play, then finally broke through
the defences of Declan Ryan when Joe Graham pass around the boards came to Tony
Hand and the Player-Coach picked out James Archer who was skating towards goals
and then saw the Sheffield-born forward lift
the puck over Ryan to level at 1-1 at 14-08.
In the Second period
it saw Telford retake the lead in the contest after Rob Schnabel tried to clear
it out of the zone and saw Rick Plant do extremely well to keep it inside the
zone. Plant had caught the puck out of the air near the blue line and then
passed it over to Miika Kivitanta, who then dragged the defence over to one side
of the ice before finding his fellow country man and another former Manchester
forward in Timo Kuuluvainen. Kuuluvainen made the Phoenix pay for not closing
him down and rifled it one time past Fone for the 2-1 lead coming a 23-12.
We then saw both
sides pick up penalties with Luke Boothroyd skating off for Hooking at 32-15
and when the penalty ended the Phoenix man was given the puck up ice on a
breakaway chance and seen Michal Pavlu bring the Phoenix man down with no call
against the Telford man. After the whistle Andy McKinney lost it with it the
referee for not giving a penalty shot or even a penalty over it and instead
talked himself into a 10 minute misconduct penalty as well as angering the home
fans.
Less than a minute
later the officials arguably made a levelling out call for the Boothroyd trip and
seen Tigers Nathan Salem penalised at 34-36 for the softest Slashing call you
will see. Telford then had another man go into the box when Rick Plant was
called for High Sticks at 35-04 and from that resulting powerplay saw Manchester
unable to draw level.
Telford then
increased their lead to a 3-1 score, when some good battling by the forwards
near the boards seen Dan Rose get the puck near the blue line and with Frantisek
Bakrlik accidently screening his goalie at the front of the net, it saw Rose blast
go in at 38-59 which saw the huge contingent of the 'Tiger Nation' celebrate
down by the corner.
It also saw the distinct
possibility of the away team in this series, winning every game as in the five
previous games between the two sides it had the away side come out victors on
each occasion.
The third period saw
Manchester come back into the game after Telford had much the better of the
second period and looked to be the stronger side in the middle stanza.
At 41-20 James Archer
beat Declan Ryan top shelf to see the Phoenix move within one of the Telford lead,
after Tony Hand and Michal Psurny assisted Archer`s second goal, with the forward getting
the puck in the slot and despite Ryan getting a piece of it, he just couldn`t
keep it out.
Manchester then found
themselves back on a penalty kill after a strange passage of play. It saw Jack
Watkins have the puck by the boards and then Michal Pavlu came right through
the youngster from behind leading to Richard Bentham taking exception to the
poor hit and then had Watkins wanting some revenge on Pavlu, with the Telford
man wanting no part of any Phoenix player after Bentham thrown a punch or two.
After the incident
the penalties given out was that both Watkins and Bentham got called for Roughing,
whilst Pavlu picked up just a two minute call for Boarding as he was lucky not
to get a 2+10 for checking from behind.
That then saw
Manchester shorthanded and much like what seems to happen to Phoenix a lot with
their penalty kill unit popping up with a goal after James Archer had skated
down the right wing and put a pass across for Frankie Bakrlik, that saw the
Czech man effort saved by Ryan but Archer was there to follow up on the rebound
and gave Phoenix the tying goal at 50-50 with a shorthanded goal and also James
Archer`s Hat-Trick goal to boot.
Phoenix then got the
go-ahead goal in the contest, when Schnabel cleared round the boards and took a
funny bounce off a Tigers skate which saw the puck come straight out to Michal Psurny
and then put Tony Hand clean through on goal. From there the pass went to the 'Great
One' and
as he beared down on Ryan in the Telford goals, Hand fired past him and
put the hosts 4-3 up at 51-20 and had Telford well and truly rocked at that
stage of game.
Telford then made it
all square at 54-27 of the game after Rick Plant kept his legs going, with the
forward braking through challenge after challenge which saw the Phoenix defence
unable to dispossess the puck off him and then seen Plant lay it across the
crease for Miika Kiviranta to score and make it 4-4.
We then had a little
scuffle after Bakrik gave a little hit off the ice to Pavlu and then saw him
knocked down from behind by the Tigers defenceman at the front of goal. Ryan then
made a save and lost the puck in the melee which then seen McKinney jab at the
pads of Ryan for the puck and had the Tigers defending their netminder by
shoving the Manchester man away.
From there Bakrlik
was being held down by Pavlu, which saw the Czech forward not too pleased and
dropped the gloves taking his frustrations out of the defenceman. While he was
throwing the punches Joe Miller was trying to break up the fight by grabbing
the Phoenix man and then pulled his head down before other got involved in the
altercation.
That should have seen
Miller thrown out for a 3rd man in call, but the officials didn`t call it and
so saw Michal Pavlu got just a two minute call for Charging, while Frankie
Bakrlik was furious and got a Two for Roughing and then a 10 minute penalty for
Dropping the gloves all called at 57-49.
With no further goals
in the Third period we headed to overtime and saw exactly a minute of overtime
gone, before a Pass by Tony Hand was cut out but only as far as Michal Psurny who
collected it and saw the Czech forward skate round the back of the defence to
put it in for the Overtime winner and seen Phoenix collect a four point weekend,
to give them confidence heading into the playoffs next weekend against the
Bracknell Bees.
The whole of the evening was more or a build up to the Trophy Presentation of the League Title being handed to Manchester Phoenix and saw Captain Luke Boothroyd take the title and hold it aloft to preclaim themselves as Kings of the EPL for this season.
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| ROBIN KOVAR shows off the EPL Championship title |
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| STEVE FONE |
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| Rob Schnabel celebrates with figure skating for the Phoenix Faithful! |
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| MANCHESTER PHOENIX 2013-14 |
| English Premier League | GP | W | OTW | OTL | L | GF | GA | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Manchester Phoenix | 54 | 33 | 6 | 2 | 13 | 232 | 157 | 80 |
| 2 | Basingstoke Bison | 54 | 31 | 5 | 2 | 16 | 205 | 159 | 74 |
| 3 | Guildford Flames | 54 | 27 | 5 | 5 | 17 | 213 | 174 | 69 |
| 4 | Milton Keynes Lightning | 54 | 24 | 6 | 4 | 20 | 200 | 182 | 64 |
| 5 | Swindon Wildcats | 54 | 23 | 6 | 2 | 23 | 190 | 172 | 60 |
| 6 | Telford Tigers | 54 | 24 | 4 | 1 | 25 | 193 | 182 | 57 |
| 7 | Sheffield Steeldogs | 54 | 18 | 2 | 8 | 26 | 194 | 226 | 48 |
| 8 | Bracknell Bees | 54 | 17 | 4 | 4 | 29 | 168 | 210 | 46 |
| 9 | Peterborough Phantoms | 54 | 18 | 0 | 9 | 27 | 177 | 224 | 45 |
| 10 | Slough Jets | 54 | 15 | 2 | 3 | 34 | 160 | 246 | 37 |
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