Final Score - Peterborough 3 : Oxford 6

Saturday 20th September 2008

Oxford rolled into Peterborough on Saturday night prepared for their toughest test so far. The Islanders are a well established outfit who always play hard on home ice, last year they won the English Cup and made the end of season playoffs. Although missing Michael Knights through suspension and Shaun Yardley (injury) the Islanders still had a full bench which included coach Jesse Hammil.

The first period started at a thunderous pace with both teams playing physically and some very big hits were flying around from both teams. The early battling paid off for Peterborough as they scored from a dodgy deflection in front which left Skaife no chance. There was a question whether the puck was kicked in but the referee decided it should stand. With a little under 5 mins played Stars were 1-0 down when Captain Elliott and veteran Mackintosh clashed in front of the Stars bench. There was some pushing and shoving but nothing serious, that was until Islanders Canadian player coach Jesse Hammil skated from distance to join in needlessly and heat things up. The resulting melee saw Hammil and Stars Bailey ejected with the Canadian receiving 2 game penalties for his troubles. A bemused Bailey who didn’t leave the bench during the fracas and clearly did not want to fight was sent for an early shower, this was a great trade for Oxford as it left the Islanders with only one import and no coach. Stars equipment manager Phil Skaife was also removed from the game at the same time

This spurred the visitors on and within 16 seconds of the restart ‘goal machine’ Dean Francis scored his first unassisted to level the score. Less than 3 minutes later he scored again from good set up play by Eden and Oliver to give the Oxford side a well deserved lead. The teams traded goals in the first 10mins of the 2nd period as Featherstone supplied for Wojciak to rifle home his 1st Oxford goal. Then some mis-communication in the Stars defensive zone saw Islanders pull one back. That signalled part 2 of the ‘goal machine show’ as it looked like everytime Francis had the puck he was going to score, his speculative long range effort found the net to complete his hat-trick at 29:35 and he then added for his 4th at 34:04. By now the game was over and Stars were happy to just play keep puck for long periods of time they passed the puck effortlessly and had shades of the 87’ Oilers about the their attacking and puck control down low. Peterborough were unable to contain them and even with very a good import defenceman, Ivan Turan, they were powerless to break up the play.

Coach Morvan will be very pleased with the amount of control his team had over the first two periods but will no doubt want them to be a little more cut throat and make the possession count on the scoreboard. On a number of occasions some unlucky finishing after some great tic-tac-toe play kept the score down. Skipper Elliott, new boy Armour and even pocket rocket Sam Broughton had opportunities which they should have scored to add to the team tally. Elliott eventually did finish after a slick pass and move between his line-mates Armour and Edwards at 35:19. The 3rd period saw much of the same possession-wise, Oxford content to pass around and take the opportunity to conserve some energy for the game the next night in Streatham. This allowed Peterborough a very late consolation goal at 58:27 to make the final score 6-3 to the Stars.

The 2008/09 Stars are proving that an entirely British team can compete and win games in the ENL Div 1 this year. Islanders have now lost all their games so far and are clearly missing Simmo and Britton on defence. On the flip-side Oxford remain unbeaten as this 3rd win in a row set the stage for an early top of the table clash as they travelled to Streatham the following night.