Lightning’s title hopes take another blow with back-to-back defeats

Milton Keynes Lightning’s hopes of lifting the National Ice Hockey League title are fading fast after a pair of disappointing defeats at the weekend.

On Saturday Basingstoke Bison capitalised on one of the most disjointed and poorest displays of the season for Lightning at Planet Ice on Saturday when they inflicted an 8-4 defeat on the hosts. The following day MK went to Swindon Wildcats and came home with a 5-2 loss

Lightning made a bright start against Bison with a fourth minute powerplay goal before the visitors hit back with two strikes in the space of 22 seconds and then effectively destroyed any hopes of a fightback with three goals in less than three second period minutes to lead 6-2 at the second break.

The hosts had a third minute ‘goal’ disallowed – the officials ruling the puck was directed into the net by a skate. Seconds later Bison’s Alex Roberts was penalised for hooking.

On the resulting powerplay Bobby Chamberlain smashed the puck past goalie Jordan Lawday – the goal coming on 4mins 19secs. Ashley Tait forced his way through the home defence and scored from close range at 7mins 21secs to equalise for the visitors.

Just over three minutes later at 10mins 46secs Brendan Baird crashed home the puck into what was effectively an empty net with goalie Matt Smital already committed to his left. Worse was to come as Liam Morris made it 3-1 at 11mins 8secs with the momentum already swinging to the Hampshire outfit.

The goal prompted a timeout call by coach Lewis Clifford who tried to settle his troops. It worked to an extent in limiting Bison’s opportunities before the first break while not producing any goals for Lightning.

Chamberlain and Roberts dropped the gloves for a fight in the 16^th minute – the MK winger earning an extra two minutes for charging.

Lightning fell further behind when Zack Milton scored on 24mins 42secs. Smital hardly had time to recover before Roberts stretched the visitors’ advantage. That strike signalled the replacement of Smital by Brandon Stones.

A couple of minutes later a fine Leigh Jamieson blast from the edge of the left circle into the top right corner of the goal gave his side a glimmer of hope at 26mins 23secs. But Basingstoke added a powerplay goal by Roberts with a rocket that gave Stones no chance from the left at 27mins 41secs.

Mikey Power set up Morgan Clarke-Pizzo for a well-taken goal to make it 6-3 after 44mins 14secs before Bison added to their score when Chamberlain was dispossessed by Roberts who beat Stones one on one at 50mins 27secs.

Adam Harding had the last shout for Bison when Stones left a gap to his right on 58mins 6secs to take the tallies to 8-3 before Sam Russell gave the scoreline some respectability for the hosts with his first goal for the team – with just 30 seconds remaining.

At Swindon four goals in 11 second period minutes wrecked any chance of Lightning had of securing two points.

Lightning got off to an excellent start as Chamberlain supplied Sam Talbot for the opening goal after 2mins 45secs. However, MK were unable to add anything to the early advantage and it was to cost them after the break.

Within seconds of the start of the middle session, Tim Wallace was penalised for hooking. Just 27 seconds after the penalty – called at 20mins 32secs – Swindon were able to take full advantage with a powerplay strike from Polish international Tomasz Malasinski.

Malasinski defeated goalie Matt Smital to give the home side the lead at 25mins 46secs. There was a golden opportunity for MK to hit back quickly when Swindon coach Aaron Nell was sin binned for boarding less than a minute after, but the visitors were unable to capitalise on the powerplay.

Balint Pakozdi added a third goal for Wildcats at 30mins 4secs and worse was to come less than two minutes later when, on 31mins 54secs, Swindon took advantage of a high stick penalty on Liam Stewart as Malasinski set up Nell to beat Smital for a fourth time.

MK retrieved the situation slightly thanks a Chamberlain goal on the powerplay at 48mins 33secs while Nell was back in the penalty box for hooking. However, despite some late pressing they were unable to cut the arrears any further.

In a last throw of the dice coach Clifford called a timeout with 1min 46secs remaining and Smital was withdrawn in favour of the extra skater. The result was an almost immediate empty net goal for Wildcats as Sam Godfrey found Edgars Bebris who scored on 58mins 29secs to make it 5-2.