Leeds Knights: Resolve of short-benched Knights to be tested by Peterborough Phantoms

Ryan Aldridge’s team go into today’s top-of-the-table clash with Peterborough Phantoms light on numbers partly through injury, largely through unavailability.

Four young Knights – Archie Hazeldine, Carter Hamill, Oli Endicott and Tate Shudra – are away on international duty with Great Britain Under-20s, gunning for gold in the World Championships Division 2A tournament that gets underway tomorrow when they take on hosts Lithuania in Kaunas.

In addition, head coach Aldridge will have to make do without his most experienced defensive pair of Sam Zajac and Jordan Griffin, both ruled out through injury, the latter sustaining his upper-body blow in last Sunday’s 4-1 home defeat to Swindon, the Knights’ first in regulation this season.

To help plug the gaps on his bench, Aldridge has brought in D-man Thomas Barry, whose debut will pit him straight in against his old club, having left the Phantoms at the end of last month.

The 25-year-old Sheffield-born blue liner played for Basingstoke Bison for one game last weekend – scoring two goals – and had initially signed with Widnes Wild in NIHL North One. But Aldridge has looked at the long-term picture as well as his current situation and added Barry to his roster for the remainder of the season.

It is the smart move as it will give him more flexibility down the stretch, particularly in terms of Lewis Baldwin, re-signed primarily as a forward for the season, but who has found himself back on defence more often in recent weeks.

Elsewhere, the Knights’ depleted forward lines will be boosted just for today by the return of a familiar face in the shape of Lewis Houston, who left the Knights mid-season last year for family reasons but who has kept his hand in this season by playing for hometown club Solway Sharks in NIHL One North.

Both will be welcome and timely additions, but Aldridge remains fully aware of the size of the task facing his short-benched team, particularly against a Peterborough side who pulled level on points with them last Sunday when a 10-7 home win over Raiders IHC stretched their winning streak to 10 games.

Like the Knights, Peterborough have only lost three games, two of them coming on a double-header weekend at the hands of Leeds back in late September.

“It’s a massive game to go into with four guys missing from your line-up,” admitted Aldridge. “If you add Sam and Jordan into the equation, that’s obviously a massive blow ahead of a very important game of the season.

“It’s going to be a serious battle both nights but it will be an interesting battle and we need to try and bounce back on Saturday. Our go-to guys are going to be on the ice a bit more than usual, so it will also be about managing their ice time across both night

“It will test our resolve and it is the toughest test we’ll have faced as a group this season.”

Peterborough are the team to have hauled the Knights in for a reason and Aldridge is aware of the threats that they pose his line-up all over the ice today.

"They are just a solid hockey team from top to bottom and by adding Martins Susters to that line-up they are even deeper now,” he added.

“They’ve got three big, strong lines. Most teams have two lines and then a younger line full of energy guys, but Peterborough are strong across all three lines. They have a solid coach and they buy into the way that he wants them to play.”

Today’s clash has been brought forward to a 4.30pm face-off to allow spectators the chance to get away in time to watch England’s footballers take on France in the World Cup quarter-final.

On paper tomorrow’s road trip to Raiders IHC looks the more straightforward of the Knights’ two games this weekend, but Aldridge doesn’t see any let-up for his short-benched line-up.

"After a big game like the one on Saturday any game the follwowing day is going to be tough,” added Aldridge. “We’ll be up early on Sunday morning, it’s quite a long bus trip down there with boys who are already tired from the night before.

"Raiders are like Peterborough in that they work hard every night, all night so it’s going to be another tough ask.”