Let’s do this one back to front !
This is play-off hockey and the only thing that matters is the result because, quite simply, you are only ever one weekend away from the end of the season so what does the performance matter ? Phantoms won 4-1 tonight and that will be enough to see us through to the next round and, in truth, even if we hadn’t won 4-1 then we’d probably win with ease in Milton Keynes anyway ….. we like big ice !
Now why doesn’t all that make me feel more positive ?!!!
Tonight was really poor on all fronts. At times we looked like an established NIHL side who didn’t know how to deal with a short benched, all British side made up of enthusiastic young kids and experienced players who would quite openly admit to being past their best-by dates. We once again tried to play our European big-ice passing game on our small and poor quality ice and once again it failed because once again our opponents revelled in spoiling the umpteen passes being made just to move from zone to zone.
Despite it being a home play-off fixture, we jumped into it in second gear at best and managed to serve up a paltry eight shots on goal in the first twenty minutes. Thankfully, Thunder’s netminder was flapping like a carp and managed to let three goals in which should have been more than enough encouragement for Phantoms to lay siege …… but alas they didn’t. Even on 3on1 breaks, we managed to pass the puck so many times that any advantage was long gone by the time we reached the opposition goal and no shots on goal during a 5on3 powerplay …… what was that about ?
Goals from Owen Griffiths, Nathan Salem, James Ferrara and Ales Padelek still managed to serve up a comfortable lead by the 25th minute mark but then instead of going for the kill, we sat back, we rolled four lines and we basically decided that was enough. In the second half of the game, we were outshot by Thunder and in the final period, we rarely left our half at all and it was no surprise that Thunder grabbed a late goal as a result.
Although it is another debate altogether to ponder what performances like this will do to our endless battle to put bums on seats (thank heavens so many missed this one !), I have to accept that seven more totally inept performances like that, if they deliver seven more wins will serve up two pieces of silverware so …… one down – seven to go !!!
Game stats HERE