Leeds Knights consign Peterborough Phantoms 'pain' to history to open up gap on NIHL National rivals

The cold, intimidating Cambridgeshire rink is, of course, where the Knights produced their worst-ever performance under head coach Ryan Aldridge, losing 6-0 in the first leg of the NIHL National Cup Final in March last year.

As the majority of Knights fans will remember, they nearly pulled off one of the greatest comebacks back on home ice in the second leg, but had to settle for second-best when Peterborough did enough in the 6-2 defeat to seal the deal across two nights.

The Knights had already gone some way to exorcising the ghosts of that painful February night with two road wins at Peterborough already this season - 3-2 winners in November and 4-1 victors when visiting for a second time on January 7.

But shutting out your hosts while plundering seven goals yourself - the markers coming from Matt Barron (2), Kieran Brown (2), Mac Howlett, Finn Bradon and Oli Endicott - is something quite different altogether.

It also saw the Knights complete a clean sweep in the six-game series between the two teams this season.

Coupled with a shoot-out defeat for second-placed Milton Keynes Lightning at Solway Sharks, it all added up to a fine weekend’s work for the Knights, stretching their lead at the top marginally to four points, while still having two games in hand on their closest rivals.

The first of those games comes this Thursday at home to Hull Seahawks, hurting no doubt from their pointless weekend courtesy of a 2-1 defeat at Swindon Wildcats and a 5-4 reverse at Bees IHC on Sunday.

Matty Davies’s team will be desperate to get back to winning ways, particularly when their chance to do so comes at the scene of their greatest triumph yet this season, when they completed a deserved National Cup semi-final triumph over the Knights when a 5-1 victory earned them a 9-3 aggregate triumph and a two-leg March showdown with the Lightning.

The Knights can afford the odd slip-up between here and the end of the regular season on March 31 when it is the Seahawks again who will provide the opposition.

But the margin for error is not great and, of nothing else, the Knights will be determined to set the record straight against their Yorkshire rivals in front of their own fans.

It was the impressive and intelligent Barron who got the ball rolling in Peterborough on Sunday when he struck at 5.34 to make it 1-0 to the visitors.

Howlett doubled the lead five minutes later before Barron found the target again with just six seconds of the period.

In a carbon copy of when the goals were scored the previous evening in the Knights’ beat the Phantoms 7-2 at home, the Knights added just the one in the second period when Brown scored on the powerplay at 37.52.

The Knights’ captain doubled his tally just 21 seconds into the third period before the flourishing Bradon made it 6-0 at 47.01, Endicott getting his reward for another industrious performance when he completed the scoring just over four minutes later.