In a tough follow up to Friday’s Autumn Cup win in Bretton, Phantoms took a point out of Basingstoke on Saturday evening but will be frustrated at a late collapse that cost them the extra point.
Phantoms got off to an absolute flyer against a team who were Phantoms closest title rivals going into the game with James White putting them 0-1 ahead after just 90 seconds. Martins Susters turned his man inside out before crashing one against netminder Mettam who made the block but couldn’t prevent White putting away the rebound.
With Bison taking the first penalty of the game at 3:07, Phantoms then made it 0-2 when Petr Stepanek crashed home a loose bouncing puck in front of Mettam. Bison were in a tailspin and immediately called an early time-out to steady the herd. Bison started to take the game back to Phantoms but without ever threatening Jordan Marr as Phantoms comfortably defended their lead going into the break.
Bison worked their socks off to get back into the game in the middle period but Phantoms organised and disciplined defending was frustrating them with Jordan Marr only facing a meagre four shots in the period. Phantoms managed little more but, crucially, one of those found the back of the net on 35:39 when Nathan Pollard profited from a badly timed Bison line change to drive into space and crash one through Mettam for 0-3.
Phantoms took their comfortable lead into the third period and were still keeping the home side at arms length going into the final 7 minutes but then it all went wrong as tiring legs started to kick in. At 53:15, Sampford spun in close to beat Marr and, just 49 seconds later, Norcliffe made it 2-3 burying a rebound off his own shot.
The home side now had all the momentum but Phantoms know how to defend at the death and they kept it at 2-3 until 58:13 when captain James Ferrara was called for tripping to set up a late Bison powerplay and they needed just 58 seconds to make it count with Cowley deflecting in Tait’s slapshot to tie the game.
Neither side could finish the game in overtime but Bison came out on top in the penalty shots with Stepanek and Padalek failing to score for Phantoms and Klejna and Tait scoring for Bison.
Phantoms MOM was Martins Susters.
On the face of it, a very good point for Phantoms in the toughest of fixtures and in the toughest of circumstances but at three goals ahead with seven minutes left, they will be kicking themselves over losing the extra point.
A huge game on Sunday now when Phantoms will need to find a way through aching limbs and the best netminder in the league to make it a trophy plus three league points for the weekend and that will be a very, very good return indeed !
Game stats HERE