MATCH REPORT | Heading Home From Hull With The Win

From the first face-off, the Phantoms had confidence entering the game, this was evidenced when Austin Mitchell-King broke away from the Seahawks heading towards Seahawks’ goalie Jordan McLaughlin to line up for a shot, but Lee Bonner managed to steal the puck from Mitchell-King. Johnny Cornell served a tripping penalty, allowing Luke Ferrara and Cam Hough to shoot at McLaughlin, it was Jarvis Hunt who was able to roof the puck in McLaughlin’s net lighting the lamp for the Phantoms.

Minutes later the Phantoms were on another powerplay as Lee Haywood sat for hooking, Brad Bowering found Mitchell-King in front of the net, and Mitchell-King lifted the puck neatly into the top corner, hitting the bar, post and then the back of the net. Equally, the Seahawks weren’t allowing the Phantoms to rule the ice, with Owen Sobchak, Bonner and Corneil all shooting at Phantoms’ goalie Hayden Lavigne but he stood on his head and batted all shots away, ultimately it was Emil Švec who opened the scoring for the Seahawks.

Entering the second period, the Seahawks were on the back foot, Declan Balmer and Haywood wanted the show their team they weren’t giving up as both blocked shots from Hough and Nathan Salem respectively, it was Bobby Chamberlain who scored the leveller for the Seahawks.

The period became quite penalty heavy with Bowering being handed a slashing penalty and Bonner sitting for embellishment from the aftermath, this left both sides evenhanded, this was until Tom Norton was given two minutes for hooking, the Phantom penalty kill unit worked well to defend Lavigne and to keep the puck out of the Phantoms’ zone.

Nojus Venskutonis was handed an interference penalty and he cleverly decided to get an arise out of Rhys Edwards causing him to get a roughing penalty making the game evenhanded. Less than 30 seconds in the period, Bowering, Ferrara and Hough all link up to score the leading goal.

Just over a minute into the third period, Duncan Speirs saw his opportunity to extend the Phantoms’ lead further as he slapshotted from the face-off circle into McLaughlin’s net. Despite the Phantoms having the lead, the game remained tense, Janne Laakkonen and Hough linked up to attempt to make a gritty goal but McLaughlin had other plans for the duo.

The Phantoms weren’t prepared to give the game to the Seahawks, Callum Buglass and Jasper Foster intercepted shots from Švec and Chamberlain defending Lavigne, despite this, Chamberlain managed to get a puck past Lavigne at a later stage. With less than 2 minutes left in the game, the Seahawks called a timeout and pulled McLaughlin providing them with six skaters, but the Phantoms dug deep and kept the Seahawks at bay.