Hull Seahawks' heartache as Milton Keynes Lightning prevail in National Cup Final

Trailing 5-4 from the first leg in Hull last week, the Seahawks went to Milton Keynes confident of overturning the deficit, but they came unstuck as the hosts ran out comfortable 5-1 winners in front of a sell-out crowd, securing an overall 10-5 aggregate triumph.

It will have made for a depressing coach ride home for Matty Davies and his Seahawks’ team, but they can take solace from the fact that they reached the showpiece occasion in only their second season. There is much more to come from this team.

There remains one weekend of the regular season fixture schedule before the Seahawks turn their attention to the post-season, opening the group format of the play-offs with a double-header against Yorkshire rivals and regular season champions, Leeds Knights.

The Seahawks would have loved to go into those derby games with a trophy already against their name and they started brightly enough in Milton Keynes, making netminder Jordan Hedley work hard in the opening exchanges.

But they found themselves a goal down on the night inside five minutes, Jordan McLaghlin’s right-pad save on Rory Herrman’s initial effort seeing the puck fall kindly to Ross Venus who swept the puck home to double the Lightning’s overall advantage.

Hedley was alert to deny Sam Towner and then Jamie Chilcott, while Hull had McLaughlin to thank at the other end when he snuffed out a Lightning 2-on-1 breakaway involving Tim Wallace and Nathan Ripley.

Hull had an opportunity to level when Lightning’s James Griffin took the first penalty of the night for slashing, but it was at the other end where the goal came, Toms Rutkis eluding Owen Sobchak before seeing his effort cannon off the post and over the line off McLaughlin’s back to make it 2-0 at 17.22.

It got worse just over three minutes into the third period when a Svec penalty for slashing saw Dillon Lawrence make it 3-0 on the power play at 23.47.

Ross Venus and Wallace both went close only to be denied by McLaughlin as the hosts threatened to run away with it.

That moment came just over the halfway mark when Liam Stewart drove into the Seahawks’ zone down the middle and poked the puck on to Rutkis who beat Mclaughlin low down to his left to make it 4-0 at 31.27.

McLaughlin then denied Herrman from close range before Bobby Chamberlain came closest to getting Hull on the board, only to be denied twice from close range by Hedley.

The Hull-born winger then thought he had scored, only to see it waved off after it was judged the period buzzer had sounded.

Any faint ideas during the second period break Hull may have entertained of a comeback disappeared inside six minutes when Rio Grinell-Parke broke free down the right and squared the puck to Rutkis who deflected it past McLaughlin at the near post for his hat-trick strike.

Thereafter the game descended into both teams taking too many penalties, Chamberlain and Tom Barry’s nights ending early with misconduct penalties, the only highlight for the visitors coming in the 56th minute when Finlay Ulrick got his team on the board when firing home on the power play.

It was the least Hull deserved for their efforts, but it won’t have been enough to take away the pain of losing out in such a big game.