The Canberra Knights fell to their second straight home loss with a 5-2 defeat to the Melbourne Ice in their AIHL game at the Phillip Ice House earlier tonight.

Seven different players tallied goals in a hard fought game that held much promise for the home side, despite their being without in-form players John Fowlie and Mark Rummukainen.

Knights players totalled 66 penalty minutes in the last seven minutes of the third period, that also saw the ejection of Canberra’s Trevor Ross and Mike Silva.

“A couple of our players need to take a deep breath before they react on the ice,” said Knights manager John Raut in response to the Knights massive penalty minutes tally. “Although, both teams wanted to play clean hard hockey tonight – they just weren’t allowed to,” he said. “We’ll be filing a report with the AIHL Referee’s Commissioner on Monday and that’s all I’m prepared to say.”

The Knights went ahead five minutes into the game when David Batho beat the Ice defence to the puck and centred a pass to Steven Deans who scored from close range.

Melbourne would however tie the score soon after, with Steve LaForet’s pass from the point met by Sean Jones in front of the net after the Knights had coughed up the puck in the neutral zone.

The Knights then went in front again early in the second period when Matt Lehoczky played a cross-crease pass to Richard Moon who tapped the puck home in his return game for the Knights.

But Canberra’s night would go south from there, as first Peter Matus and then Brad Vigon scored a minute and a half apart to send the Ice into the second break up 3-2.

The third period started with little incident, and Melbourne extended their lead through LaForet after the Ice were able to muscle the puck out of a cluster of players behind the Canberra net.

The game would unfortunately turn sour with seven minutes left when Canberra’s Silva clotheslined Melbourne’s Jones as the latter tried to get back into play after being skated into the boards.

A mixture of bad behaviour and over-zealous refereeing then saw Knights players filling the box at a torrid pace – at one time nine Knights players were entertaining the penalty timekeeper.

The Ice got their fifth goal on a lengthy five-on-three power play before the game finally ended amidst a chorus of boos, directed largely at the game officials.

The Knights now have a two week break before taking on the Adelaide Avalanche at home on May 14.