Hull Seahawks coach Matty Davies on his team's chances of making the NIHL National play-off finals weekend
Following on from Saturday night’s 11-5 road win against Bees IHC, Hull beat the same opponents 6-2 on home ice on Sunday, the four points meaning the Seahawks still control their own destiny going into the final round of Group A games this weekend against Peterborough Phantoms.
For the Seahawks, nothing has changed from where they were after losing both games to Davies’s former club, Leeds Knights, on the opening weekend of the post-season.
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Hide AdThey simply have to win both games against Peterborough – either in regulation or, if needs be, in overtime or a shootout.
If that were to happen both nights against Peterborough, both teams would be level on eight points but the Seahawks would progress due to accumulating more points in the two games – four, to the Phantoms’ two.
The Phantoms would also progress, though, if Leeds fail to pick up a point in their final two group games against the Bees, already eliminated after picking up no points so far.
If Leeds take just one point from their back-to-back clashes with Dominik Gabaj’s side and Hull do beat the Phantoms twice, then Yorkshire will have two teams at the Final Four Weekend at Coventry’s SkyDome Arena on April 27-28.
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Hide AdAny kind of win for Peterborough this weekend will end Hull’s chances of making it to Coventry.
A hat-trick from Bobby Chamberlain led the way on Sunday against the Bees, aided by a double from Finlay Ulrick and an Emil Svec strike.
And Davies, is confident his team will get the job done again, with the first encounter against the Phantoms at Hull Ice Arena on Saturday (face-off 5.30pm) before a second clash in Peterborough the following night.
“It’s in our hands now, we know what we need to do, we’ve just got to go and do it,” said Davies (pictured). “We’ve done what we needed to do against Bees and it was important to get a bit of confidence back again.
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Hide Ad“We’ve talked a lot about where we are as a group. We’ve got a good group and when we’re playing the right way and hard, we can beat anyone.
"And now everything points towards Saturday right now – it’s the biggest game of the year for us now – hopefully we can pack it out and make it a hostile atmosphere for Peterborough.”