Leeds Knights see winning start to season finally ended with defeat to Peterborough Phantoms

They still remain top of the group standings in the NIHL National Autumn Cup and now face a straight shoot-out with Sheffield Steeldogs in the final game this Friday to see who enters the semi-final stages as top seed.

Their Yorkshire rivals bounced back from two defeats with a comprehensive 8-1 win at home to Milton Keynes Lightning on Saturday, meaning they are just one point adrift of the Knights ahead of the eagerly-anticipated showdown between the two teams at Ice Sheffield.

The Knights came as close as possible at Elland Road of giving themselves a chance to maintaining their unbeaten run when they thought they had equalised through Cole Shudra with just 15 seconds remaining.

But, controversially, the officials waived the goal off after determining that the puck had been kicked in, much to the frustration of Shudra, his team-mates and their fans.

The Phantoms therefore survived and headed back down the A1 to Cambridgeshire having proved that Leeds were, after all, beatable.

Although head coach Dave Whistle felt afterwards that his team hadn’t enjoyed the best of starts, they still found themselves 2-0 ahead after 10 minutes, Brandon Whistle striking with just 46 seconds on the clock before Kieran Brown doubled the advantage at 9.26.

But within five minutes the Phantoms - fresh from having inflicting a 4-3 overtime defeat on the Steeldogs the night before - were level, Duncan Spiers halving the deficit on the power play at 11.30 before Jarvis Hunt found a way past Sam Gospel three minutes later.

It remained level until just past the halfway stage when Ales Padelek put the visitors ahead, only for defenceman Ben Solder - playing at centre in the ongoing absence of Matty Davies - to level 19 seconds later at 30.58.

Padelek doubled his tally on the man advantage at 45.00 with Shudra in the box on a slashing call and the writing looked to be on the wall finally for the Knights after they went 5-3 down when Hunt’s speculative effort on the turn near the right boards somehow found its way past Gospel.

Brown fired home a rasper on the power play past Jordan Marr at 55.27 to offer hope, something that the hosts thought had been delivered upon when Shudra forced the puck home, only for the officials to soon decide otherwise.

Leeds had extended their winning start to the campaign to six games with a convincing 6-3 win at Milton Keynes 24 hours earlier.

The Knights fell behind to an early strike from Bobby Chamberlain before Sam Talbot doubled the home side’s lead at 26.09.

But Leeds were soon level, making it a one-goal game just over a minute later through Whistle and then establishing parity with a power play strike from Brown at 32.59.

That was how it stayed going into the last 10 minutes when, crucially, the Knights got ahead for the first time, Jordan Griffin getting his first of the season at 51.19 with his team again on the man advantage.

Just over a minute later it was 4-2 thanks to Shudra, who doubled his tally shortly after at 56.32.

Adam Laishram popped up to give the hosts a glimmer of hope just 15 seconds later, but Whistle put paid to any thoughts of a comeback when he fired home his second goal of the night at 57.58.