Lightning through to Knock Out Cup Final
Milton Keynes Lightning are through to the final of the English Premier League Knock Out Cup where they will meet Peterborough Phantoms after beating Guildford Flames 5-3 at Planet Ice on Thursday.
The victory gave Lightning an 11-6 aggregate win while Phantoms overcame Sheffield Scimitars in overtime with a 3-3 draw – enough to see them through 7-6 on aggregate.
Lightning had the best possible start against Flames when Adam Carr set up Gary Clarke to score from close range after 28 seconds on the team's first attack.
The hosts could have gone further ahead on nine minutes when Ales Parez robbed David Savage of the puck and fed Nick Poole whose shot hit the post.
The home side went in at the first break 1-0 ahead with Flames unable to make anything of penalties on Poole and Michael Wales and the Surrey team defending short-handed with Milos Melicherik in the sin bin for hooking.
But that changed within 28 seconds of the start of the second session when Rick Skene found Vinny Zavoral in space just inside the blue line. Greg Randall made the challenge but failed to stop Zavoral from firing past goalie Barry Hollyhead.
It was Randall who restored Lightning's lead when they had a five on three powerplay following penalties on Rick Plant for hooking and Skene for holding and roughing – Skene given an extra two minutes. At the same time Stuart Potts and Gary Clarke were called for delaying the game.
Mikko Skinnari supplied Randall from the right and he was able to pick his spot past netminder Alex Mettam at 26mins 16secs.
On the same powerplay Skinnari then got in on the scoring act taking Toni Alasaarela's pass to make it 3-1.
Lightning by now relaxing to show the confidence missing so often recently then exerted considerable pressure on the Flames net when the visitors were caught with too many men on the ice. However they were unable to score.
They did do so though after the end of the powerplay when Clarke turned in Parez's pass from the right.
Flames gave themselves a glimmer of hope before the period ended as Taras Foremsky unleashed a fierce shot which Hollyhead parried but was unable to stop from trickling over the line at 36mins 54secs.
With about 13 minutes to go in the third period Hollyhead did well to deflect a Foremsky shot away and the keeper then made a good stop from Ollie Bronnimann.
Flames then reduced the deficit on the night to one goal when Plant managed to get away and just get the puck past Hollyhead at 48mins 46secs. But with the clock counting down Flames still needed to score five goals in just over 10 minutes.
The final nail was driven home with possibly the best Lightning goal of the night. Alasaarela and Parez went on the offensive with the Czech player shielding Mettam's view of the puck as the Finn fired to his right at 57mins 43secs to make it 5-3 and book Lightning's place in the final on dates to be decided.
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Weather for Milton Keynes
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: -6 C to 0 C
Wind Speed: 5 mph
Wind direction: South east
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 1 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North west
