Peterborough Phantoms bounced back to make a solid start to the defence of their National League play-off title

The city skaters followed a 3-2 defeat at Hull Seahawks on Saturday with a resounding 6-2 win against the same opponents at Planet Ice the following night.

Phantoms are second in the four-team group behind League champions Leeds Knights who beat Telford Tigers 4-3 and 9-2. Slava Koulikov’s side will now look for two wins this weekend against Telford to cement their position. Phantoms are in Telford on Saturday before hosting the return game on Sunday (April 6, 5.30pm face-off).

Phantoms finish the group stages with a double header against Leeds the following weekend with the top two in the group qualifying for Finals Weekend in Coventry on April 19/20.

Phantoms received a boost going into the weekend as top scorer Cam Hough committed to the club for the 2025-26 season.

HULL 3 PHANTOMS 2

As expected two teams who finished just a place and a point apart in the regular season fought out a tense, tight encounter on Humberside, one that wasn’t settled in the home side’s favour until the final stages.

Hull’s Tom Stubley forced a save out of in-form Phantoms netminder Hayden Lavigne after just 10 seconds, but Phantoms responded well in an end-to-end start to the game with Brad Bowering going close to scoring.

Hull broke the deadlock in the 12th minute when Johnny Corneil fired past Lavigne on the powerplay, but Phantoms raised their game and, after Louie Kynaston and Luke Ferrara had tested home netminder Dimitri Zimozdra, Tom Norton accepted a Nathan Salem pass to equalise on 15.12.

Joy was short-lived though as Lee Bonner shot Hull back in front just over two minutes later and the contest became frantic rather than controlled with Phantoms surviving several powerplays to reach the end of the second period still 2-1 down.

Both netminders stood tall in the final period with Zimozdra keeping out Hough, Stewart Robson, Jasper Foster and Callum Buglass, and Lavigne making a superb stop to thwart Bonner.

Phantoms teenager Nojus Venskutonis struck a post and Hough just missed the target, but Hull eventually wrapped up the points with a goal from Emil Svec three minutes from time.

Phantoms pulled a goal back through Janne Laakkonen seven seconds from the end, but it was too little too late.

PHANTOMS 6, HULL 2

The city started as they meant to go on in the return match as Laakkonen opened the scoring in the first minute. Hull hit back with 4:04 on the clock, when the puck fell kindly for Alex Kent, but they weren't level for long as man-of-the-match Nathan Salem struck just 24 seconds later.

Salem made it three with his second on 6:26, capitalising on a breakaway chance which saw him exchange passes with Austin Mitchell-King before ripping into the net. Remarkably with under seven minutes on the clock there was a fifth goal as Owen Bruton netted for the visitors. Hull didn’t score again as Phantoms took control.

Richard Hartmann extended the Phantoms lead to 4-2 after work from Barni Sari on 24.51 and it was 5-2 by the end of the middle session when captain Ferrara scored with a slapshot during a powerplay.

Phantoms eased through the final period with Hough twice going close to a goal and Salem seeing a potential hat-trick goal washed out by the officials. Mitchell-King completed the scoring and a solid weekend by tapping home into an empty net with less than two minutes to go.