Lightning face Peterborough in final battle
MK see off Guildford in semis after shoot out
Milton Keynes Lightning will do battle with old rivals Peterborough Phantoms in the final of the English Premier League play-offs after seeing off Guildford Flames in dramatic style at Coventry Skydome on Saturday.
Having taken an 11th minute lead they were staring defeat in the face when Joakim Wiklander scrambled the puck into the net with 2mins 19secs of regulation time to go to equalise after Flames had gone 2-1 in front.
MK took the lead when, with hundreds of Lightning fans in full voice, Greg Randall's superb long pass out of defence was met by Gary Clarke who raced away to beat goalie Joe Watkins on 11mins 42secs.
That was the only goal of a fairly even first period. However the second session belonged to Flames as Lightning were saved by the heroics of goalie Barry Hollyhead on a number of occasions.
However he could do nothing to stop Ollie Bronnimann from firing home first time from Lukas Smital's pin point pass from the right at 33mins 22secs.
While Lightning were giving as good as they got in the third period their hopes seemed to be sunk when Taras Foremsky sent Nick Cross away up the left to shoot past Hollyhead at 46mins 37secs.
As the clock ticked down Lightning upped a gear and it finally paid off as Wiklander somehow squeezed the puck in at 57mins 41secs.
There was more drama though with referee Dave Cloutman washing out a claimed Flames goal with 30 seconds to go – the puck not having crossed the line.
This sent the game in five minutes of sudden death overtime during which a clash between Wiklander and Smital saw both given two minutes in the sin bin for roughing.
But in addition the Flames man was given a 10 minute misconduct penalty and finally got his marching orders when he continued to argue with Cloutman – receiving a game misconduct.
The consequence of this was that as a key penalty taker he was unavailable for the decisive shots when it came to the end of a goalless overtime period.
However few Lightning fans had optimism of winning on penalty shots – the team only having won in such a manner this season. How wrong they were – largely due to the superb Hollyhead.
Wiklander shot first only for his effort to be saved by Watkins. Hollyhead then blocked Foremsky's shot before Adam Carr fired high into the net.
Vinny Zavoral saw his shot blocked by Hollyhead before Andre Smulter sent the team into the final scoring to the right of the netminder.
The final faces off today, Sunday, at 4.30pm at Coventry Skydome.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Milton Keynes
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 25 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 22 mph
Wind direction: East
