Bison Edge Trophy Game as Phantoms run out of Gas !

They say that luck has a habit of evening itself out and after Phantoms had grabbed a controversial leveller in Bretton on Saturday evening, tonight it was the turn of Bison to bow to lady luck with a controversial game winning and trophy winning goal.

The opening period was a near mirror image of Saturday’s opener with both sides making sure they kept it tight at the back first and foremost and with a mere 8 shots on goal throughout, it was fair to say both D’s were well on top. I said near mirror image because the one exception was the opening goal scored on the back post by Roman Malinik after Scott and Rounding had outpaced Phantoms down the left flank. The period ended with a bout of handbags as Jamieson clashed with Scott which, in turn, brought in Antonov who was sat down promptly by the Phantoms man. Quite rightly, Greg Pick stepped in to even up numbers and both sides left the ice with plenty of chat being thrown about.

After a 40 minute interval resulting from the zamboni repeatedly breaking down, Phantoms emerged for the second period to find a minor penalty on the clock for Greg Pick despite no obvious call being made on the buzzer. They also found the ice in a half-cut state as rink engineers decided the zamboni was only good enough for a dry-cut.

As it turned out, neither the man short nor the slow ice were to any obvious disadvantage to Phantoms who took the game to Bison and missed three decent shorthanded chances, the best of them being a steal and feathered pass that left captain James Ferrara 1on1 but Dean Skinns stayed big to make the pad save.

Phantoms early dominance rocked the home side and they went from strength to strength, playing with pace and confidence with only Skinns and some last gasp interceptions keeping Phantoms at bay but on 31:20 Ales Padelek bundled home from close range after another incisive Phantoms attack. At this point, all the momentum was with Phantoms and Bison were looking seriously rattled but the game was about to turn on its head

A clash on the Phantoms blue line saw a player from both sides hit the deck with the Bison player seeming to be at fault after missing the puck and taking out the Phantoms D-man but no call was made. Worse still was that the prostrate Bison player appeared well over the blue line when the loose puck followed in but no offside call was made. The net result was that Bison were left 2on1 and the feed was shovelled home through King’s five-hole by Malinik for 2-1 to spark off protests from Phantoms on and off the ice.

The goal lifted Bison and killed Phantoms momentum and the period ran out even at 1-1.

The sizeable Phantoms following were anticipating another huge third period from Phantoms but tonight it wasn’t to be. The endeavour was there but the gas wasn’t …… they simply could find enough to pin back Bison as they had in the first leg. To their credit, Bison would have known what was coming and would have wanted to ensure Phantoms were prevented from setting up camp in their zone. The home side defended high, worked their socks off and simply never let Phantoms settle nor move bodies forward in the required numbers. Phantoms rarely threatened beyond speculative snapshots and, if only for their final period efforts, Bison ran out worthy winners.

Coach Koulikov …… “It is difficult not to be disappointed after losing a play-off final, but I want to be positive. We have to put everything in perspective and admit that missing two of our top guys had a big effect on the team. We could well have scored a few more goals with Owen and Darius fit and potentially the outcome might have been different, but I congratulate the Basingstoke guys and their coach for winning two trophies.”

“Not many teams are capable of going to Basingstoke and putting them under pressure for big spells like we did, though. In this situation where the margins are so small, I have to be proud of my guys for stepping up without key players and taking it right to the end against the champions. They gave it all. They fought for 60 mins on Saturday and 60 mins on Sunday. In these kind of games you always need a bit of luck, but I felt we didn’t have that. The big call and every little call as well seemed to go against us !”

Another painful “if only” result for Phantoms against the Bison and post game frustration at what was seen as less than convincing officiating for such a big game was understandable but the better way to put the record straight has to be to find a way past Telford next Saturday and set up a season ending finale against Bison in Coventry …… and make that time OUR time !

Game stats HERE