News

Phoenix struck by Lightning

Tweet

Milton Keynes Lightning 8 Manchester Phoenix 2

A bad night at the office resulted in a heavy defeat for Phoenix on Saturday evening.

Phoenix failed to capitalise on a very good start and found themselves 3-0 down in just 13 minutes. Lightning's top sniper, Adam Calder, took full advantage of defensive frailties to hit 2 goals, the third coming from Lightning's man of the match Leigh Jamieson. Phoenix gave a good away following some hope with a Robert Schnabel shot from the blue line to end the period 3-1. One other moment of note in the first stanza was the scrap between Chris Wiggins and Robert Schnabel after an altercation on the boards. Fight experts at the game had it down as a narrow win for Schnabel.

Any hope of a comeback were quickly dashed after just 24 seconds of the second period when Carr scored Lightning's fourth. Two quick goals from Jamieson around the half hour mark put the home side on easy street with a 6-1 lead. A couple of minutes after the sixth goal saw the game's major talking point. Richard Bentham took exception to an MK player lifting his stick, Andy McKinney joined in and a melee resulted with Ben Wood participating. Lightning enforcer Chris Wiggins got involved , pulling Wood to the ice and landing a couple on the prone Phoenix player. At the end of it referee Tottman put 6 players in the box on roughing minors when most people expected a couple of ejections.

Lightning took their foot off the gas in the third period and Phoenix had their best spell of the game, outshooting the home side 13-6 . Mettam in the Lightning goal was up to the task, keeping all but one from Luke Boothroyd out of his net. Further goals from Emersic and McPherson made the final score 8-2.

Phoenix outshot Lightning in all three periods but poor finishing and good goal tending by Mettam resulted in the scoreline. Of course, add to that some clinical punishment of Phoenix mistakes by Milton Keynes.

A disappointed Coach Hand said after the match: "We were heavily punished tonight for some mistakes but there are still some positives to take from the game. We outshot them by a considerable margin but must find a way to make the chances count. We will get the game out of our system and bounce back on Sunday at home to Telford."