A gutsy fight back from Phantoms earned them the right to travel to Basingstoke tomorrow with real hope of grabbing their first silverware of the season !
As expected, Phantoms were again without Darius Pliskauskas and Owen Griffiths but they started this one with no shortage of confidence, comfortably dealing with the threat from Bison but also moving the puck well through the neutral zone even if that was about as far as it got with the very organised Bison D more than a match for the Phantoms D. Chances were few and far between, penalties were non-existent and mistakes exceptionally rare ….. it was an even match-up between two well coached, well drilled teams.
Period two reached the 25 minute mark and then boom ! Somebody on the Bison bench reached down and hammered the button marked “boost” and suddenly Phantoms were pinned in their zone as Bison hurled everything including several kitchen sinks at a Phantoms rearguard who were being turned inside out but ….. with a combination of good fortune and heroic defending, they hung tough and survived. Another nice and timely time-out helped too ….. well done Coach !
As the game reached the half way mark, a superb skate from the impressive Scott Robson ended with a pass across goal to Nathan Pollard who, for a split second, had an open goal but his reactions weren’t quick enough to stop a desperate block and Phantoms best chance of the game so far went begging. A minute later and what was probably Phantoms first defensive error of the night cost them the opening goal. A quick one-touch move out of D saw Tom Norton and Glenn Billing moving the puck a little too quick, confusion set in, Bison made the steal and Karpov backhanded through Euan King for 0-1. The goal rocked Phantoms but they saw out the period at 0-1 which was probably a decent result with Bison very much on their A-game in the middle twenty.
Phantoms were out early for the third and wasted no-time in grabbing the ascendancy with Salem, Pollard and Jamieson, in particular, causing real problems in the Bison zone with some hard skating and forchecking. Chances had been rare in the first two periods but now Bison were rocking and Phantoms were creating openings. Dean Skinns was a busy man and was having to come up big to save from Jamieson and Weldon while other chances slid painfully the wrong side of the pipework. Phantoms deserved a goal and probably more but with the clock ticking down fast, it was looking like a frustrating night until Salem and Jamieson broke out on a 2on1 break just short of the 55th minute. Salem shaped up to feed Jamieson but with the D-man caught in no-mans land, he drove in hard on Skinns and put everything into the back of the net ….. he claimed that included the puck, Bison said no way and there was no red light but after a long consultation between officials, the goal was given and the crowd were bouncing !
Both sides looked reasonably happy to see out the last five minutes and there were few late scares with both sides probably reasonably happy to take the draw !
This was a very good performance from Phantoms who ticked most of the boxes they needed to tick tonight. They were very disciplined at the back such that the likes of Karpov, Antonov and Connolly went largely unnoticed. Every player played a strong two way game and the only shortcoming appeared to be an inability to make any impression up front but they certainly put that right in the final period when they could easily have skated away with a three or four goal advantage.
My suspicion is that they will run this game again in the second leg, keeping it tight early on and then looking to move through the gears in the final period. It will take a huge effort for sure but all the components needed to win tomorrow night were evident in tonight’s game ….. whisper it but Phantoms could seriously pull this off !
Game stats HERE