Phantoms forward line is a nightmare for Raiders

The thought of Martins Susters, Corey McEwen and Petr Stepanek will probably leave Raiders in a cold sweat for weeks.

That devastating forward line did the vast majority of the damage on Sunday night as Phantoms roared to their biggest success of the new NIHL National Division era.

Susters laid the foundations with a treble in the first period, while McEwen hit a hat-trick as he belatedly kicked his season into gear following injury.

The club’s leading scorer Stepanek also got in on the act with one of the goals, while all three men were also responsible for a stack of assists.

The‘SMS’triocertainlysent outaclearmessageastheypiled up 16 points between them – and yet there was still room for others to join the party too!

McEwen carved out the opener for Susters after just 75 secondsandthesamemandoubled the lead with a fine blast on a powerplay after Raiders man Ollie Baldock was somewhat harshly called for embellishment – the ice hockey equivalent of diving.

Quick thinking and slick handling from Stepanek then allowed Susters to complete his triple whammy and the only

PHANTOMS

1.15 Susters ass: McEwen/Stepanek 5.47 Susters (PP) ass: Billing/Padelek 15.35 Susters ass: Stepanek/Norton 33.13 McEwen (PP) ass: Susters/C. Pollard 40.18 J. Ferrara ass: Billing/Padelek 41.03 Stepanek ass: McEwen/Susters 46.02 McEwen ass: Stepanek/Susters 51.08 McEwen ass: Romeo/Clarke 53.20 Billing (PP) ass: Susters/Padelek 57.16 O’Flaherty ass: Romeo/Bowering

RAIDERS

42.38 Sylvester ass: Piatak/Connolly

PHANTOMS Corey McEwan

RAIDERS Sean Barry

surprise was that Phantoms then had to wait until well into the second period for another breakthrough.

Their near-constant pressure was finally rewarded when McEwen opened his account after sitting out the opening 10 games of the season with a shoulder problem.

That proved to be the only goal of the middle session, but Phantoms really went for the jugular in the closing period when more than doubling their tally.

It was only 18 seconds old when captain James Ferrara got in on the act and Stepanek then added his name to the list of scorers less than a minute later.

A Raiders reply from Jake Sylvester ended Phantoms’ hopes of a shut-out, but it was nothing more than a brief hiccup with normal service soon being resumed.

McEwen struck the next two goals past two different netminders as Raiders replaced Michael Gray with back-upGregBlais,butthenew custodian could do nothing to stem the tide.

Glenn Billing’s cheeky powerplay effort continued Phantoms’chargebeforeshort-term signing Gareth O’Flaherty sent them into double digits with his first goal for the club.

And just in case one hiding wasn’t enough for poor old Raiders, they received another one late on when their supposed hardman, Mason Webster, made the mistake of picking on Joe Gretton and received a volley of punches for his troubles!