It was not until after the halfway mark that Lightning were able to turn their almost total dominance into a respectably healthy lead, despite two fine Gary Clarke goals in the first nine minutes.

On both occasions the super sniper deked netminder Daniel Heslop before slotting the puck home at 2mins 54secs and 8mins 59secs.

When Tigers grabbed their only goal at 15mins 15secs it was completely against the run of play with the visitors only having had about four shots on goal at that stage. Indeed goalie Barry Hollyhead was probably caught cold when he was only able to parry Marek Hornak's shot away to Dean Tonks who fired home the rebound.

A minute or so later only the pipework denied both Greg Randall and Clarke while Lightning were on the powerplay with Milan Kostolny serving two minutes for holding.

Lightning were in still control of the game in the early part of the second period but could not add to their tally until Ales Parez drew the netminder Heslop to his right and then passed to Grant McPherson to slot home on 31mins 20secs.

The real turning point came though with 38 seconds left on the session as Parez's shot was blocked by the goalie only for Clarke to complete his hat-trick by blasting in the rebound.

Heslop claimed, unsuccessfully, that the net was off its moorings and was still complaining 30 seconds later – earning him a 10 minute misconduct penalty for abuse of an official.

As the third period started Lightning quickly took the score to 5-1. Toni Alasaarela chased a loose puck behind the goal and fed the oncoming Parez who shot high into the goal.

Clarke then turned supplier as he laid the puck back to Alasaarela who gave Heslop no chance with a long range effort on 44mins 59secs.

Unselfishly Kurt Irvine then set up youngster Danny Chaplen for goal number seven on 47mins 15secs when he could have probably scored himself.

Tigers' misery was compounded on 49mins 47secs as Alasaarela was provider for Nick Poole to fire in with an upstairs shot.

A penalty call on Tigers' Tom Parker for tripping just inside the final 10 minutes gave Lightning the chance to give Hollyhead a rest by replacing him with back up David Wride who only had four shots to save in the remainder of the game.

The pressure at the other end of the ice was relentless and a second tripping call on Parker allowed Lightning to increase their tally with Adam Radmall blasting low into the net from just inside the blue line at 55mins 42secs.

The final goal came less than a minute later when Parez set up Ross Bowers at the left pipe. The goalie appeared to have the pipework covered but somehow Bowers squeezed the puck in to complete the rout.

Lightning v Tigers statistics:

Lightning scorers: Clarke 3+1, Parez 1+3, Alasaarela 1+3, McPherson 1+1, Chaplen 1+0, Poole 1+0, Radmall 1+0, Bowers 1+0, Croft 0+2, Carr 0+2, Hollyhead 0+1, Mahmud 0+1, Skinnari 0+1.

Tigers scorers: Tonks 1+0, Hornak 0+1, A Stanton 0+1.

Shots on goal: On Barry Hollyhead 22/1
On David Wride 4/0

On Daniel Heslop 58/10