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Manchester Phoenix 2 - Slough Jets 5

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Phoenix Scorers: Jaroslav Spelda and Juraj Faith.

J Davidson sponsored Manchester Phoenix fell to their second defeat of the weekend when they lost 5-2 to the Slough Jets at the Dome on Sunday evening.

Phoenix were without Tony Hand but welcomed the return of Slava Koulikov to the ranks.

After even early exchanges Slough took the lead in unfortunate circumstances when they took advantage of the injured Slava Koulikov lying on the ice to score through Joe Greener. The crowd were unhappy that referee Matt Thompson refused to blow play dead in order for the prone Koulikov to get treatment. The Phoenix centre went off the ice and took no further part in the game.

The visitors doubled their lead with a power play goal on 17.08 as Jaroslav Spelda sat out a rather harsh boarding call. Aaron Connolly got the goal assisted by Adam Calder and Doug Sheppard.

The teams went to the first break with Slough leading somewhat fortuitously by 2-0.

The second period was only 11 seconds old when Phoenix pulled a goal back. Almost straight from the initial face off Luke Boothroyd slipped a pass to Jaroslav Spelda who smashed the puck from the half way line past a startled Greg Rockman to give the home side some hope. Ryan Johnson went to the penalty box in the 25th minute, picking up a 10 minute misconduct for abuse of officials and Phoenix found themselves on the back foot for the remainder of the period. The score, however, remained at 2-1 in favour of the visitors.

The third period turned into the Darius Pliskauskas show as the big forward hit three goals in 14 minutes. Phoenix did manage to score once more through Juraj Faith but it was to be the Jets’ night as they took the points back to Berkshire with them.

Phoenix tried hard in all three periods but the breaks just did not come their way and some excellent finishing by Darius Pliskauskas secured the win and pulled the Jets to within 2 points of Phoenix in the race for 2ndplace in the table.