Peterborough Phantoms are battling against early-season injury issues
Peterborough Phantoms are already fighting an injury crisis as they head into the second weekend of the National League season.
The city side opened their competitive season with a battling 2-1 win at the Berkshire Bees last Saturday.
But they took to Planet Ice for their opening home game against Sheffield Steeldogs the following night without Nojus Venskutonis, Mathew Saville, Duncan Speirs, Janne Laakkonen and Jasper Foster and slipped to a 5-3 defeat.
Phantoms are back on home ice to face the Bees on Saturday (7pm face-off) before travelling to London to tackle the Raiders on Sunday (5.15pm).
Both matches have League and Cup points at stake as did the game against Sheffield which Phantoms led 3-1 after one period before the greater strength in depth of the visitors told.
Slava Koulikov’s men remained competitive throughout though, before conceding a last-minute empty net goal after replacing netminder Hayden Lavigne in favour of an extra skater.
But there was no negativity in the Phantoms camp after the game as defenceman Callum Buglass told the club’s YouTube channel.
"There were plenty of positives from the weekend,” Buglass insisted. “You can’t question the desire or commitment of our team.
"We worked hard for the win against the Bees and the game against Sheffield was decided by a couple of moments.
"They came with four strong lines and we had some young guys up against them, but those minutes could prove valuable later in the season when we are pushing for prizes. The experience can only do them good.
"It doesn’t matter who plays this weekend as we will just get on with things against two hard-working teams. It’s unusual to have early-season adversity like this though.”