Phantoms announced themselves as serious title contenders tonight with an impressive victory in Bracknell at the same time as Swindon, considered title favourites by many, were losing at home to Streatham.
Phantoms got the jump in the opening period, punishing an early Bees penalty with a Corey McEwen powerplay marker on 2:26 but the lead was wiped out on 6:17 when Ivan Antonov tied the game. If the home fans thought that was back to business as usual then they were in for a shock just 51 seconds later when Ales Padelek put Phantoms back ahead. After surviving a Bees powerplay when James Ferrara was called for hooking on 15:42, phantoms rocked the home side with a second marker from Ales Padelek bang on the 19 minute mark to leave Phantoms two goals up at the break.
If Phantoms got the jump in the first then Bees were taking no chances in the second, coming out fired up and pulling a goal back with a Roman Malinik goal with just 61 seconds on the period. Bees dominated the early exchanges before Phantoms hit back with chances of their own but a stick holding call on Harry Ferguson at 29:14 set up a powerplay goal for Antonov on 30:33 to draw the team level and at 34:24 another powerplay marker from Galazzi made it 4-3 Bees on the tail end of a Tom Norton tripping call.
Going into the final period, it was crucial that Phantoms didn’t leak an early goal and, instead, it was Bees who coughed up the early goal with Harry Ferguson finishing from Petr Stepanek for a 4-4 game at 41:41. A fired up Bees tried to strike back but instead gifted up further powerplay opportunities which Phantoms failed to take advantage of but, ironically, they did take advantage of a short-handed play after a “too many men” bench penalty at 53:29. With the referee’s arm up for an infringement against Bees, Petr Stepanek skated clear to finish emphatically for a 4-5 Phantoms lead with just 5:40 left on the game.
Bees threw all they had at Phantoms and even pulled their netminder for the final minute but Phantoms know how to defend tight games at the death and ran out deserved winners.
Callum Buglass took the beers as Phantoms MOM.
A huge result for Phantoms against a side tipped by many as title favourites in the Summer, a result made all the more special by the home loss suffered by Swindon to Streatham. A night when Phantoms have undoubtedly made their pitch and made their statement ….. a long way to go and some tough matches ahead but make no mistake about it, they’ll all be gunning for us now !
Game stats HERE