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Phoenix make it three out of three

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Slough Jets 2 - Manchester Phoenix 4

Phoenix scorers: Liam Chong x 2, Richard Bentham and Tony Hand.

J Davidson sponsored Manchester Phoenix travelled to Berkshire to take on the Slough Jets as league leaders and defended that position with a 4-2 victory.

Phoenix were at full strength and the Jets were missing tough forward Ryan Watt.

In an end to end start, Phoenix fell foul of referee Matt Thompson as Richard Bentham went to the box on a harsh interference call followed by Frankie Bakrlik for slashing. Phoenix killed the penalties and started to put some pressure on the Jets’ goalie Greg Rockman. The pressure paid off after 7.01 as Liam Chong managed to poke a loose puck, coughed up by the netminder, into the net. Assists went to Andy McKinney and Richard Bentham. The period continued with good end to end hockey with both goalies making saves to keep the score at 1-0 to the visitors.

Slough came out hard and fast and put some serious pressure on Stephen Fone and the Phoenix defence but they stood strong until 26.44. With the referee’s arm up for a delayed penalty, Slough broke down the left and ex Manchester man Slava Koulikov brought out a great pad save from Fone. Unfortunately another of Phoenix’s ex players, Ciaran Long, was in the right place to fire the puck home for the equaliser. The crowd were treated to a fast, entertaining period with the end to end play continuing throughout. Phoenix re-took the lead on 34.02 when Liam Chong was again right on the spot to fire a rebound netwards and past Rockman. 2-1 Phoenix with an assist given to Richard Bentham for the original shot.

As in the first period, Phoenix ended the second on the powerplay meaning that they would have the man advantage for over a minute at the start of the third.

There were only about 300 people in the hangar and those who didn’t attend missed a very entertaining match. Slough killed off the penalty and were looking to find a way back into the game when Phoenix dealt them a killer blow on 42.01. This time Richard Bentham scored assisted by Liam Chong. Jets’ captain Michael Wales did his team no favours shortly afterwards when he disputed the referee’s interpretation of using the elbow and picked up a 10 minute misconduct to go with the aforementioned 2 minutes for elbows. The icing was well and truly on the cake at 44.48 with a gem of a goal from player-coach Tony Hand. Breaking out of the Phoenix zone, the veteran forward skated wide right and hit the puck under the despairing Rockman to give Manchester a 4-1 lead. Phoenix had to kill off a couple of penalties around the 50 minute mark but they looked composed as they struck the puck around, running down the clock. With just under 5 minutes left in the match, Darius Pliskauskas netted, assisted by Dan Davies and Tomas Fojtik, to give the home fans a glimmer of hope. It was not to be and Phoenix comfortably saw out the remaining time to take an excellent 2 points back up the M40.

Man of the match awards went to Ciaran Long for the Jets and the excellent Liam Chong for Phoenix.

Coach Hand said after the match:

“That was a good win for us. Slough are a good team and we needed to be at our best. I thought our young lads played very well tonight, getting us goals at important phases of the game. I am really pleased with our start to the season; three out of three cannot be bettered. Sunday’s game will be another tough ask for us, but we are ready and hoping for another 4 point weekend.”

Phoenix man of the match, Liam Chong, spoke to press officer Jim Piper as they boarded the bus for the journey home:

“We played well tonight and worked hard for the points.”