Saturday: Manchester Phoenix 6 Bracknell Bees 1
Sunday: Manchester Phoenix 6 Swindon Wildcats 5
Manchester Phoenix claimed two home wins at the weekend over Bracknell Bees and Swindon Wildcats in their final league games of the season at the Altrincham Ice Dome.
On Saturday night, Phoenix cruised to a 6-1 win against Bracknell, with goals from Czech forwards Robin Kovar and Frantisek Bakrlik putting the home team 2-0 up after the first period. In the second, Player/Coach Tony Hand grabbed the third, and despite Matt Foord responding for Bracknell, Swedish defenceman Johan Burlin made it 4-1 to Phoenix.
In the final period, Shaun Thompson added Phoenix’s fifth goal before Burlin scored again with 27 seconds left to finish off the scoring.
Sunday night saw an end-to-end game with Bakrlik and Kovar grabbing early goals to put Phoenix 2-0 in front. But Swindon stormed back with three goals in three minutes, one from Polish forward Tomasz Malasinki and two from Aaron Nell to make it 3-2 at the end of the first.
Phoenix came flying out of the traps in the second period with a powerplay goal from Adam Walker and another from Bakrlik to put Phoenix ahead again, but Swindon levelled through Sam Bullas with only six seconds left in the period.
Swindon got their noses in front in the final period through Loris Taylor but after Kovar made it 5-5, Adam Walker capitalised on an error to win the game for Phoenix with only 26 seconds left on the clock.
Phoenix now host Basingstoke Bison next Saturday in the playoff quarter final first leg.
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