Peterborough Phantoms keen to turn a good run into a great one

The city club have reeled off three consecutive victories to shoot up the NIHL National Division standings.

Phantoms climbed to fourth spot after a four-point weekend in which they triumphed 4-1 at then leaders Sheffield last Saturday (October 12) before seeing off fierce rivals Milton Keynes 4-0 on home ice 24 hours later.

Those successes followed a 4-2 verdict against basement boys Leeds the previous Sunday and Koulikov hopes the foundations have been laid for a Phantoms surge.

He said: “We’ve managed to have good runs of results early in the past couple of seasons and it would be brilliant to do that again.

“There’s no reason why we can’t do it, but we all know this is a tough league where virtually every game can go either way on every night.

“There were a lot of good signs last weekend when we took all four points and hopefully that has given us a bit of momentum.

“We showed we are capable of winning on the road and we’re still running at 100 per cent in our building.”

Extending the winning streak certainly won’t be easy with a couple of tough tests lying ahead this weekend.

Phantoms head to Romford to take on Raiders tomorrow (October 19, 5.15pm) before welcoming new table-toppers Telford to Planet Ice on Sunday (5.30pm).

“It’s going to be a tough away game against Raiders,” added Koulikov.

“We’ve found it hard against them in the last two seasons and they have already shown their quality by beating Swindon and Hull in the same weekend recently.

“They then lost both games last weekend so I’m sure they will be determined to produce a response and we need to be ready for that.

“I’m not at all surprised to see Telford doing well at the top of the table.

“They have a very good coach in Tom Watkins and a core group of guys who have been together there for many years.

“They have also strengthened again this summer with a good goaltender so I’m sure they will stay up there.”

Forward Corey McEwen could make his first appearance of the season this weekend following a shoulder injury.