A RARE off night for the Basingstoke Bison on home ice, saw them slip to a 4-2 defeat against visiting Peterborough Phantoms.

Victory would have moved the Herd up to second in English Premier League, but instead they are now four points behind their Cambridgeshire rivals, but have five games in hand.

The home side were minus Matt Selby, Declan Balmer and Cameron Wynn on international duty and Joe Greener suspended.

The visitors welcomed back top British forward Luke Ferrara, but still had player/coach Slava Koulikov missing.

The Herd got off to a dream start as Doug Sheppard, scored on the powerplay after 61 seconds.

However, this was a good as it got for the home side, as the visitors battled back being helped by an awful penalty call from referee Stephen Matthews, which the home fans made sure he knew about.

This was when netminder Janis Auzins went down, with a dive which strikers in the Premier League would have been proud of and Michael Wales’ departed to the sin bin for tripping, where he joined Ricky Skene.

This gave the Phantoms a two man advantage and Darius Pliskauskas fired in from the blue line.

Three minutes later, the visitors took the lead from Alan Lack, with a lucky break, as the puck reared up at the post and hit the arm of Bison netminder Dean Skinns and fell into the net.

The Bison were finding it hard to get their game going, as Peterborough won the man-to-man battles in their end zone.

The home side had the first two powerplays of the second session, but were unable to cut out too many clear cut chances.

Ciaran Long was then denied on the breakaway by Peterborough man-of-the-match Auzins.

The visitors, who looked sharper with their chances, extended their lead to 3-1, as Tom Norton slotted home at 33:11.

The Herd thanks to a two-man advantage on a powerplay replied soon after, from a crisp strike from Tomas Karpov.

Referee Matthews then endeared himself to the home fans again, as Miroslav Vantroba took a tame tripping penalty in centre ice.

The Phantoms made the most of the powerplay, even if Skinns produced a great save to deny Pliskauskas, seconds later the very impressive James Ferrara was given too much time and fired home.

For the final period of the game, Peterborough sat back to defend their two goal lead and Bison could not find a way through.

The Herd penalty count swelled in the final 20 minues, as Ricky Skene took a 10 minute misconduct penalty for disputing a hooking call.

Miroslav Vantroba was then dismissed in the final three minutes, after a scuffle behind the home net, in which the Slovak received a match penalty for butt ending.

This left the Herd to play the final minutes of the game shorthanded and ended the game as a contest.

This evening, the Bison will hope to bounce back to wining ways, when they face Invicta at home (face-off 5.30pm) in the English Challenge Cup.

Meanwhile, also today, the Herd’s Selby, Wynn and Balmer will be in action for Great Britain under-20s, in their opening game against the Netherlands in the World Championships.