As expected, Phantoms spent Sunday evening taking advantage of disheveled opposition in the form of basement side Invicta Dynamos, running up 13 goals from 72 shots on goals and its probably fair to say that the scoreline flattered the lowly Mos.
Icing just twelve skaters, it was imperative that the visitors stayed disciplined to at least stay with Phantoms four lines for as long as they could but it seems the game plan was more focussed on getting shots away at referee Richard Belfitt rather than the Phantoms largely redundant netminders. The tone was set by the Mos coach being thrown out of the game after a tirade of abuse hurled from the bench in the first period and they even had their backup netminder thrown out late in the game for the same offence. Inbetween they racked up a further seven indiscretions just in case Phantoms needed help ……. which they didn’t !
A meagre 2-0 at the first break courtesy of a ripper from Tom Norton and a back post finish from Harry Ferguson but any semblance of a tight game fast eroded in the second as Phantoms chalked up a further five goals including a timely top corner finish from Nathan Long against his brother Adam in the Mos goal. The pick of the five, however, was James Ferrara’s short handed goal with the Phantoms skipper racing onto a Scott Robson breakout pass to put the eyes top right and the puck top left to completely wrongfoot Adam Long. The low point of the period was an injury to Rob Ferrara who was caught under the visor by the puck to put him out of the game with what looked like a nasty facial injury.
Period three saw the Mos legs really cave in and with Phantoms still rotating four fast and furious lines, it was a total turkey shoot that stopped at 13 but could easily have been 20. Best of the bunch was undoubtedly Nathan Pollard’s pacey one-on-one break that destroyed Mos backup netminder Conor Morris.
Phantoms beers went to Harry Ferguson.
Nothing much Phantoms could do tonight but keep rotating the full bench which they did and score plenty of goals which they also did. It was never particularly clinical otherwise you could have doubled the scoreline but it will feel good for ten different scorers to get on the scoresheet and that will probably benefit them more than any one player filling his boots !
As for the Mos ….. desperately sad for them and for the league. This is a team with real problems, having no ice time to train this week due to financial issues between the club and the rink which, in turn, has impacted on players being paid (or not) …… they have very few players anyway and the best of those are not locals but journeyman players who must be at risk of saying enough is enough. On top of all that, they look demoralised and, on tonight’s showing, indisciplined both on and off the ice.
It will be very bad news for the NIHL1 South if Mos implode but it certainly isn’t looking good !
Game stats HERE