The Peterborough Phantoms travelled to Cardiff for their 6th game of the 2024 British Para Ice Hockey League, to face the Cardiff Huskies at the Vindico Arena.
The Phantoms went into the game sitting in the top spot of the league table, with the Huskies in 2nd place. Phantoms were missing netminder Dan Lee, along with defenceman Jamie Hutchcraft and forward Ali Amini for the top of the table clash.
The game saw the Phantoms start the stronger of the two team with Callum Shakespeare and Stacey Quirk both have early opportunities to open the scoring.
Huskies opened their account, against the run of play, on 2.46 when the Phantoms were caught all dropping too low around Davina Hall’s goal, and Tyler Christopher fired through traffic to make it 1-0.
The goal didn’t stop the Phantoms and D-Jay Hall forced a good stick save from Dan Hutchinson in the Huskies goal just 2 minutes later.
The period saw the fans entertained with end to end action as both teams pushed to get the advantage.
Huskies doubled their lead on 5.53 when Tyler Christoper battled his way into the Phantoms zone before laying the puck off to Jonathon LeGalloudec who’s shot just crept into the Phantoms goal. A minute later and a speculative long range bobbling shot from Christopher caught the Phantoms off-guard and went under the Phantoms netminder to make it 3-0,
Huskies had a powerplay on 7.47 when Phantoms Stacey Quirk was called for Tee’ing, but the Huskies found themselves sat in their own zone for the 2 minutes as the Phantoms kept up the pressure and pushed to break Hutchinsons shutout.
The second period carried on where the opening 15minutes had left off, with more end to end action and both netminders being forced into big saves.
On 15.58 a shot from just outside of the netminders crease forced Davina Hall into a big save to keep the Huskies at bay.
Three minutes later and Phantoms Gary Farmer broke from his own defencive zone and his powerful shot rebounded back out to the advancing Callum Shakespeare who just missed connecting with the puck and placing it in the empty net.
The Phantoms came close again on 20.04 when a fight for the puck in front of the Huskies net saw Shakespeare, Quirk and Farmer all have shots rebounding off the Huskies netminder or defenders.
Phantoms didn’t have it all their way in the middle stanza and Davina Hall was called upon to make a big double save from the Huskies on 26.24 to keep it a scoreless 15 minutes.
P3 started with the Phantoms looking for their goal, whilst Huslies knew they couldn’t take their foot off the gas. With just 2.33 played Huskies Paul Furber broke away with the Phantoms defence all chasing him down. Furber took his time before shooting, only to see his shot well saved by Davina Hall.
A minute later and D-Jay Hall thought he had scored his first ever Phantoms goal with a low shot that everyone thought had gone under the Huskies netminder, until the ref blew up and the puck was found lodged under Hutchinson’s pads.
With 38.25 of the game played, Furber made up for his earlier miss, when his high shot flew into the top corner of the goal to give the Huskies a 4-0 lead.
A minute later and the Huskies shutout was gone when D-Jay Hall fed a long pass to Gary Farmer who’s shot gave Dan Hutchinson no chance in the Huskies net.
It’s rare that you see a penalty shot in Para Ice Hockey, but nothing was a surprise in this game and when Gary Farmer pulled down Tyler Christopher to stop his breakaway, the ref imediately called a penalty shot. Once everyone had worked out what they needed to do on the penalty shot, it was Jon LeGalloudec who skated in and scored to make it 5-1.
LeGalloudec then gave the Phantoms a late powerplay after getting called for tee’ing on 44.36 but the Huskies held on to take the points.
Player of the Game awards went to Davina Hall for the Phantoms, and the impressive Evan Hansen for the Huskies.
A great advert for the sport, with both teams fighting right up to the final buzzer, and with all of the players leaving the ice with smiles on their faces.
Phantoms final two games of the league campaign are both at home. They host the Sheffield Steelkings on Saturday 27th July, before finishing by hosting the Cardiff Huskies on the 10th August. Both games face off at 4.15pm.