Clinical Dogs beat Phantoms Saturday February 8th and with the end of the league season approaching fast, the Bradfield Brewery Sheffield Steeldogs took on the Peterborough Phantoms at iceSheffield. The sides were in 6th & 10th place, six points apart going into the weekend’s games so it was the proverbial four-pointer. The Steeldogs had a full team (Jakubik the import missing out) and started Dalibor Sedlar between the pipes. The Phantoms started Damien King and included ex-Dog and Sheffield product Danny Wood in their line-up. 10 seconds in to the game and a first Steeldogs attack saw Greg Wood flick the puck past King on a feed from Payette. An early power-play for the Phantoms saw Pliskauskas forcing a diving save from Sedlar and then Danny Wood got the better of Sedlar but just couldnt get the touch to finish it. The Steeldogs first man advantage saw Lubomir Korhon showing great patience to beat King from an acute angle to double the lead. Goal number three was scored by Andre Payette assisted by Tom Squires whos hard work create the opportunity at 11.08. The Phantoms weren’t getting any luck and continued to pepper Sedlar and they eventually scored at 15.35 as a Petran blast found the bottom corner. Peterborough came out looking determined in the second period - but so were Sheffield. The puck spent the majority of the time in front of Sedlar but between defensive hard work, bad luck and misdirected shots the Phantoms couldnt score. They didn’t give up and finally at 33.01, at the end of a 4 on 3 power-play, Luke Ferrara was the man in the right spot to fire into a wide open net. The Dogs were on the back foot with the Phantoms pushing to equalise but Ben Morgan poked a puck free and Korhon turned on the jets, rounded the D and fired over King’s shoulder. The puck dropped and Craig Elliott immediately managed a very decent copy of the 4th goal to put the Steeldogs 5-2 up. Two goals in 17 seconds had the Dogs snarling again and before Peterborough could regain a hold, Eddie Bebris sniped number 6. With a three goal advantage, Sheffield seemed largely happy to sit back and contain the visitors whilst waiting for counter attacking chances. This seemed effective and a good opportunity fell to Squires who made a nice breakaway but slid the puck wide. The Phantoms finally beat Sedlar again with 8.11 to go; Pliskauskas making it 6-3 and completing the nights scoring. As the game played out, Levers and Pick tried a little double team on Payette, and a staring contest ended with the Dogs player-coach unleashing a stream of punches that Pick couldnt match. Payette received an extra 2 minutes roughing minor in recognition of his win. A 6-3 final score kept the two points in Sheffield on another night where the Dogs Czech net minder was a real difference maker. On Sunday night, Dalibor and the rest of the team will need to pack their ‘A’ game as they head across the Pennines to take on the Manchester Phoenix. The next home game is on Sunday February 16th against the MK Lightning, a 5.30 face-off at iceSheffield.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Feb 2014 00:06:34 +0000