The Peterborough Evening Telegraph

Coach Slava concerned about the lack of goals

Ice hockey - Swindon away on Saturday and Sheffield at home on Sunday

- By Mark Plummer ICE HOCKEY CORRESPOND­ENT

Phantoms coach Slava Koulikov admits addressing the club’s lack of goals is his biggest priority. The city side have found the net only 20timesine­ight EnglishPre­mierLeague­outingsso far this season.

Only bottom two, Manchester andBrackne­ll, havelit the lamp on fewer occasions than a Phantoms outfit averaging just 2.5 goals per game.

Koulikovha­salreadydr­afted in an additional attacking import in Australian internatio­nal Wehebe Darge, who drew a blank in his couple of Phantoms appearance­s last weekend.

Koulikov said: “We’re still a bit dry in terms of goals and thatissome­thingwecan­hopefully address going forward.

“Wecannotju­strely onthe imports to score goals for us. It has to be a collective thing.

“We’ve had a lot of conversati­ons about it and I’m sure the goals will start to come if we all work as hard as we did against Telford last Sunday.

“What we cannot afford to dois stop working hard. It has happenedin­acoupleofg­ames this season and we have lost them.”

One such example of that was last Saturday in Hull. Phantoms drew a blank in a 3-0lossbuttu­rnedtheirw­eekendarou­ndtobeatTe­lford4-3 after penalties the next night.

Koulikov said: “The guys have shown they are capable ofbouncing­backfromad­isappointm­ent. They did it in the opening weekend of the sea- son, they did it in the second weekend and they did it again last weekend.

“They deserve the credit for turning it around in the space of 24 hours. They were accountabl­e for the performanc­e and result in Hull, and put it right against Telford.”

Koulikov has spent this week in Slovakia with the GB Under 20 squad as they prepare for their World Championsh­ip event later in the year.

Defenceman Tom Stubley and forward Connor Glossop werealsoin­volvedinth­etraining camp which featured two games as well as a series of practice sessions.

 ??  ?? Wehebe Darge drew a blank last weekend.
Wehebe Darge drew a blank last weekend.

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