WHEN you’re missing your talismanic captain - the player who has led your team in scoring for the two seasons that brought successive league titles - you need others to step up.

Leeds Knights got exactly that on the opening weekend of the NIHL National season which saw them register a maximum four-point haul, while also getting the better of a team expected to be one of the main threats to their hopes of a third regular season crown.

Brown, sitting out due to an upp-erbody injury sustained in the pre-season Yorkshire Cup defeat in Hull, could potentially be back this weekend.

But, as all good, deep teams show, the Knights are not lacking when it comes to scoring from elsewhere.

TREBLE TOP: Matt Barron scored a hat-trick for Leeds Knights in their NIHL National win over Milton Keynes Lightning. Picture courtesy of Knights Media/Jacob Lowe.

And it came from everywhere. On Saturday, in the 8-5 win at Solway Sharks, young Finley Bradon was the star with a four-point haul which included a hat-trick of goals.

On Sunday, when dispatching 2023-24 runners-up Milton Keynes Lightning 7-3 on home ice, it was the turn of Matt Barron to come to the fore, scoring a hat-trick, Bradon adding a fourth goal of the weekend just for good measure.

Head coach Ryan Aldridge knows the good, the bad and the ugly of his team, having led them to two league titles and a play-off crown in two-and-a-half seasons - the weekend will therefore have come as no surprise to him.

He sees a number of his players - still largely a relatively young team - growing up before his eyes.

PLEASED: Leeds Knights' head coach, Ryan Aldridge. Picture courtesy of Oliver Portamento.

“It must have been one of the most mature weekends we’ve had since I’ve been up here,” said Aldridge.

“The young boys are growing up into mature hockey players and, as a group, it was a massive weekend for us.”

Aldridge was also pleased to see work done in practice paid off at the weekend.

“Our D-zone wasn’t very good in pre-season, but I think that is on me as well,” he added. “We just weren’t organised, so we worked a little bit on our D-zone this week, power play too, which seems to have paid off

ON THE MARK: Leeds Knights' Finley Bradon enjoyed a prolific night at Solway Sharks on Saturday, posting three goals and an assist. Picture: Tony Johnson.

“It’s nice to see the work pay off, but it should have been done a couple of weeks ago.

“But the boys have responded really well to it and with the group we’ve got, the offence we’ve got we know that if we take care of the D-zone we’ve got a good chance to win and they were exceptional out there tonight.”

The Lightning, last season’s NIHL National Cup winners over Hull Seahawks, came into Elland Road Ice Arena on a high of their own having beaten Romford Raiders 7-4 on home ice the previous evening.

But they were on the backfoot early when Bradon carried on from where he’d left in Scotland the night before when he put the Knights ahead at 4.41.

Matthew Haywood doubled the lead with his first of the season - a shorthanded strike at 16.18 - but the Lightning quickly got back in the game through Ross Venus within two minutes.

It was in the second period where the game was won and lost, though, Leeds establishing a 5-1 lead through Matthew Bissonnette, Barron’s first – via a penalty shot – and Innes Gallacher.

Tim Wallace gave his team faint hope with a power play strike at 39.40 but the Knights restored order with two Barron power play strikes inside the first four minutes of the second, leaving Martins Susters to grab a late consolation for the visitors.

Leeds Knights enjoy flying start to NIHL National title defence with maximum points haul