Final Score - Oxford 5 : Peterborough 2

Sunday 28 September 2008

Peterborough Islanders made their first trip of the year to Oxpens Road off the back of 4 league defeats including a loss on home ice to the Stars the previous week. Still without Knights and Yardley, through suspension and injury respectively, they arrived looking like they meant business with three well stacked lines.

Stars for their part were showing off their latest signing as Richie Hargreaves took to the ice for his home debut. The first period started at a high tempo as the line of ‘dangle brothers’ Elliott, Armour and Edwards gained access to the Islanders zone with ease inside the first shift and had a couple of good chances. This was carried on by the next forward line as Richie, Ace Bailey and Mike ‘Killer’ Hargreaves linked up well. Coach Morvan has stated he wants three first lines and is no doubt happy with the effort and intensity during this game, Stars are showing that they have the personnel to take it to any team in the league both technically and physically. New boy Hargreaves made an instant impact as he slipped through the Islanders defence to provide for Edwards to put the puck past netminder Moore at 12:07. This gave Stars a well deserved 1-0 advantage and although there were no more goals in the 1st period the home team were well in control.

The 1st minute of the restart saw Stars wrap up the points as Edwards scored his and Stars 2nd after slick passing from Elliott and Big D-Man Shurmer 37 seconds in. Ace Bailey was then on hand within 20 seconds to rifle home from close range, again finishing off some excellent work by Rich Hargreaves and Featherstone. The score was now 3-0 and from this point there was no looking back. Even when Ellwood scored for the Islanders at 22:16 on the powerplay Stars remained calm and in control. Joe Edwards claimed his first ever senior hat-trick at 25:17 as Wojciak moved the puck up ice quickly for Armour to dish it to Edwards who was travelling into open ice. The young-star made it look so easy as he scored five-hole on Moore from just inside the blue line with a wicked wrist shot.

Goal number 5 came at 30:08 as Stars were short handed, Rich Hargreaves unleashed a bullet from the blue line after some cool passing from younger brother Mike and defenceman Featherstone who was again relishing being involved in the play offensively. Stars were content at this point to see the period out and get all players some valuable ice time. Morvans 3rd first line of Francis, Broughton and Jacob Smith were all unlucky not to score as they too worked the puck around well, young Joe Oliver had a couple of good shifts and added his name to a long list of players battling for spots on the ice now. The only other event worthy of note was Islanders Brammall being ejected during the period for a spear on Stars Armour, this penalty was the only sour point of the match and there weren’t really any other flash points as Islanders didn’t seem to want to get involved. Even usually volatile players like Hammill and feisty Scot Mackintosh were subdued, although the latter did try to face up to Mike Hargreaves at one point which saw both players posturing but nothing coming out of it.

The 3rd period fizzled out as Stars took a few silly minor penalties which meant they played shorthanded for large parts. Although the visitors were gifted a consolation goal at 51:59, the Stars were in no danger of losing the game and started simply rolling all three lines through even-handed, powerplay and short handed situations. This became a training exercise and a chance for some of the players to showcase their talent. The Oxford fans were treated to some individual skills but more importantly Stars look at their best when they are moving the puck around between themselves at speed.

The weekend showed what the Stars can do if they apply themselves and work as a team, but it also provided a useful wake-up call and a few things for the Coach and players to work on after Saturdays defeat at the hands of a young Devils team. One things is for sure, with the league as close as it is, there will be no easy games. Stars play Haringey at Ally Pally next weekend and their next home game is against Streatham Redskins on October 12th.