The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
A big Cup Final win based on courage
Peterborough Phantoms head coach Slava Koulikov was thrilled with the ‘courage, bravery, mental strength and belief ’ of his patched-up team as they won the National League Cup.
Phantoms took a 6-0 lead from the first leg into the second game at National League champions Leeds Knights, but with influential netminder Jordan Marr among several senior absentees because of injury, the destination of the trophy was far from a foregone conclusion.
And the city side survived some nervous moments before accepting a 6-2 defeat on the night, but celebrating an 8-6 win on aggregate.
Emergency netminder signing Calum Hepburn was named man-of-the-match on his debut for the team.
“With six senior players and both senior netminders injured, it seemed an impossible task,” Koulikov said. “But when you see players cutting casts off, playing with broken bones and dislocated collarbones, and all are willing to throw themselves in the way of the puck to block shots, you know you’re on to a winner.
"The players showed a lot of courage, bravery, mental strength and belief to get the job done against the league champions.
"I’m really proud of every single one of them and I’m re
ally proud to be part of this team.
"A special mention to Calum Hepburn who got the call from us on Wednesday and agreed to come down from Solway to help us out.
"He was so calm and came up with some big saves when we needed them.
“We’ve had a good season so far. We’ve already exceeded what many people expected we would achieve this year with a good league position and a trophy.
"But there’s still one more to go for and our aim now is to
get guys back healthy in time for the play-offs.”
Leeds reduced the aggregate deficit to a single goal in the final minute of the second leg before Austin Mitchell-King secured the trophy with an ‘empty net’ goal.
Hepburn excelled during a strong start from Leeds who led 1-0 after the first period, but alarm bells started ringing when it became 3-0 before the halfway point.
In-form Lukas Sladkovsky eased concens with a terrific strike for 3-1 in the 34th minute, but within 50 seconds it was 4-1 which became 5-1 with eight minutes to go, but Phantoms eventually held firm.
Phantoms were back in regular National League action at Sheffield the following night and perhaps predictably were beaten 9-5, but superb powers of recovery 24 hours later enabled the city stars to fight back from an early deficit to pip Telford Tigers 5-4 at Planet Ice.
Phantoms now look destined to finish third in the final standings with just two matches to go at Bristol on
Saturday and at home to Hull on Sunday (5.30pm) before the fun and ferocity of playoff hockey begins.
Brad Bowering, Joe Gretton, Lukas Sladkovsky. Glenn Billing and Jasper Foster scored the Phantoms’ goals at Sheffield.
In-form sharpshooter Sladkovsky hit a a hat-trick against Telford with Tom Norton and Ralfs Circenis also on target.
Phantoms were 2-0 down early on before easing into a 5-2 lead and surviving a late Telford rally.