MK Lightning 4-3 Coventry Blaze

A new era dawned for Smith Recycling Milton Keynes Lightning as they snatched victory against Coventry Blaze in dramatic fashion with an overtime winner at MK Arena on Saturday.

Blaze – and the rest of the Elite League for that matter – were given the clear message that Lightning are not going to be pushovers in their debut season in the country’s top competition, the 4-3 win sending the home fans home in great spirits.

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This may have only been a challenge match but the new boys showed that they mean business and for much of the game they looked the better of the two teams. It was only in the third period that perhaps Lightning tired a little. Blaze were then able to level after the hosts had established a 3-0 lead which was reduced to a single goal advantage by the second break.

But the visitors’ hopes were demolished when – in three on three sudden death overtime – Christian Isackson raced up ice to set up man of the match captain Kevin King to send the puck past goalie Brython Preece for the winner at 62mins 50secs.

It was King who had opened Lightning’s account on 14mins 50secs while his side were on a powerplay resulting from an interference call on Blaze’s Dax Lauwers – the Canadian’s blast from just inside the blue line eluding netminder Kevin Nastiuk.

By that stage both team’s had already spurned powerplay opportunities with Ben Lake visiting the visitors’ sin bin for tripping after only 1min 44 secs, followed by Lightning defenceman Carl Hudson in the eighth minute on an interference call.

As the period progressed Lightning were growing into the game and they appeared to have scored a second goal in the 18^th minute when Guillaume Doucet fired in on goal. From some angles the puck seemed to have crossed the line and bounced out.

However a goal line television replay showed that the puck hit the crossbar and did not cross the line – the technology only being called upon by referee Jan Schmejeal 40 seconds after the incident at the next stoppage in play.

As a result the first period was ended prematurely with the remaining 40 seconds being played after the 15 minutes interval.

Once that was out of the way though Lightning quickly doubled their advantage as Alex Forbes made the play for Ben Foster to unleash a wicked shot from out on the left – Nastiuk misjudging the direction and flight of the puck as it rocketed home on 21mins 26secs.

Less than two minutes later Blaze captain Jordan Pietrus was penalised for holding – giving Lightning another powerplay from which they bagged their third strike within 43 seconds. This time it was Paul Philips who was the playmaker for Hudson to put the home side in control.

And for the majority of the remainder of the second period it was Lightning who were bossing the game – Blaze looking disjointed on a number of occasions.

It was only when they were thrown a lifeline when goalie Przemy Odrobny was caught out of position as Brett Robinson scored unassisted on what was effectively an empty net at 36mins 9secs that Coventry started to fight back.

Gaelan Patterson gave the score some respectability for Blaze when he reduced the deficit to a single goal on 39mins 45secs – Odrobny appeared to have made the save but failed to stop the puck from going over the line.

Both teams changed netminders for the start of the final session – Jordan Hedley replacing Odrobny and Preece taking over from Nastiuk. 

Hedley in particular did not disgrace himself with Blaze having the majority of the shots on goal in the third period – the tally 15-6 in their favour.

Having made a brilliant block from Marc-Olivier Vallerand with the game entering what would have been its final six minutes the young British stopper was unable to deny the same player for the equaliser on 54mins 42secs.

Lightning could have wrapped up the game 11.6 seconds from the buzzer with Doucet only thwarted by the netminder.

Into overtime Garrett Ladd had a golden chance for Blaze, going one on one with Hedley but he fired over the target before Kevin Gibson put Lewis Hook clear – his effort being saved.

Isackson and King then secured the win for the hosts to end Lightning’s first game as an Elite League side in the best possible way.

If every game is like this then there will be no excuse for sports fans in Milton Keynes to stay at home on a Saturday – MK Arena will be where the real action is.

Man of the Match: Kevin King

Report: Paul Brookman

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