So what did Saturday night’s game tell us about tonight’s return fixture ?
It would be a tight and low scoring game, the Pirates netminder will let in very few goals, Phantoms will struggle to find the net and our powerplay looks pretty but doesn’t deliver. In reality, we get an eleven goal shoot-out, the Pirates netminder leaks like a chicken-wire submarine, Phantoms score six goals and four of those are on the powerplay. Whatever happened to boring and predictable NIHL hockey ?!!!
Phantoms rested Jordan Marr to give Ryan Bainborough some ice-time and also rested Saturday’s match winner Corey McEwen so perhaps a signal that Phantoms were already happy with their position in the qualifying table but if Pirates considered that may give them an easy night, they were about to learn different.
A tripping call on James Archer gave Phantoms their first powerplay of the game on 9:15 and Jason Hewitt joined him on 9:46 to give up a two man advantage. As in Saturday’s game, Tom Norton opened the scoring, firing home from a Glenn Billing assist and if that rocked the home side then Petr Stepanek served up more food for them to digest, scoring twice in 64 seconds to give Phantoms a 0-3 lead by 14:58. Aaron Lyon pulled one back just before the break but Phantoms took a two goal lead into period two.
Pirates got the jump in the middle period with Lee Bonner scoring within a minute of the restart and then Sam Towner tieing the game on 28:12. Phantoms were rattled and under the cosh but once again, Pirates Achilles heal flared up on 32:33 when Josh Gent was called for cross checking. 27 seconds into the powerplay and Petr Stepanek completed a straight hat-trick, firing home from a Scott Robson feed. James Archer fired home on 34:34 as the two sides shared eight goals at the second break which saw bad boy Bobby Chamberlain take a roughing call on 40:00.
Nothing better than starting the final period on the powerplay when your special teams are on fire and once again it was Petr Stepanek on the spot to nail his fourth straight goal to put Phantoms 4-5 up on 41:49. Seemingly hell bent on delivering an entertaining game for the fans, Phantoms coughed up a goal to Jason Hewitt to bring the teams level at 45:49 and set up an exciting run in. During that run in, both sides failed to profit from powerplays but, with just 2:20 left on the game, Matty Davies was called for tripping and this time Phantoms struck with Rob Ferrara beating Fucik for a 5-6 lead that they were not going to give up and the Pirates ship was sunk and sunk for good !
MOM was not surprisingly Petr Stepanek.
The result gives Phantoms the opportunity to host Swindon in the second leg of the semi-final and if they make the final then they will now also have second leg advantage and that may well be to the disadvantage of Hull themselves if they make it !
A superb four point weekend for Phantoms that makes a big statement both to their NIHL1 rivals but maybe also to their own fans who were in the depths of despair just eight days ago !
Game stats HERE