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Second period Phoenix blitz sinks Wildcats

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Manchester Phoenix 6 – 3 Swindon Wildcats

A five-goal second period on Sunday night saw the Manchester Phoenix take total control over a brave Swindon Wildcats who could find little response to the Phoenix onslaught. And with victory in Basingstoke on Saturday, Phoenix completed another four-point weekend to keep the pressure on leaders Milton Keynes who lost in Bracknell.

Phoenix survived an early scare on Sunday as a shot from Wildcats Aaron Nell hit the post and went to safety. The home side used this as a springboard to open their account, Tony Hand finding Adam Walker in the slot and he fired home his third goal of the weekend in the sixth minute. Phoenix seemed to be in control, but Swindon stunned them with two goals in 64 seconds to wrench the lead from their hosts. Nell pounced on a missed clearance to equalise and impressive Latvian Raimands Danilics fired the visitors into the lead in the 14th minute. Swindon could have taken a bigger lead to the first interval had the goalframe not come to the Phoenix assistance again as a shot from Rusic pinged back of the post.

The second period though saw Phoenix take total control as wave after wave of attack was thrown at the Wildcats and the Wiltshire side found the Phoenix too hot to handle. Iain Bowie pulled the Phoenix level with a wraparound strike in the 25th minute and the next six minutes saw Phoenix add four more markers. Tony Hand restored the lead with a sweet backhand finish into the roof of the net; Bowie added his second after the Swindon defence failed to clear from Robert Lachowicz; Hand won a face-off to feed Andre Mattsson for a howitzer blast from the blueline and Ed Courtenay completed a purple scoring patch crashing home a shot on assists from Hand and Walker. Swindon were shell-shocked and left rueing their bad fortune as Kohut was their next shooter to be denied by the Phoenix goalframe and to their credit, they added a late powerplay marker, Kohut the scorer with Courtenay in the penalty box.

The third period saw no further addition to the scoring by either side as the Phoenix eased up and Swindon struggled to make any real headway against the home defence. Phoenix gave netminder Adam Summerfield the final five minutes of the game and he turned away the four shots Swindon were able to fire on his goal.

Phoenix coach Tony Hand noted, “Taking four points from this weekend was what I asked of the players and they responded well. We played very well on Saturday in Basingstoke and tonight I thought we were efficient and clinical, particularly in the second period. We seem to be making the second period a strong time for ourselves and I think we shocked Swindon tonight with the manner in which we regained control of the game. The bonus for us tonight was the news that Milton Keynes had lost in Bracknell and that again illustrates how huge the need for consistency is. We play both those teams next weekend and they’ve just highlighted that we will need to prepare properly and not take anything for granted.”