NIHL National Weekend Review - How Leeds Knights, Sheffield Steeldogs and Hull Seahawks fared in latest round of action

A 9-3 win at home to Telford Tigers on Saturday was followed by a 4-1 win at Basingstoke Bison 24 hours later as Ryan Aldridge’s team were able to stay top, two points ahead of Milton Keynes Lightning with a game in hand.

Milton Keynes ensured the pressure remained on the Knights with their own four-point haul, hammering Sheffield Steeldogs 11-2 before edging out third-placed Peterborough Phantoms 5-4 on the road.

That result leaves Peterborough eight points off the Knights with 13 games remaining.

On Saturday, in front of another 1,900-plus crowd, it was nip and tuck for the first 50 minutes between the Knights and Tom Watkins’s Tigers side, who had arrived at The Castle on the back of a three-game winning streak as they remain embroiled in a fierce battle to make the play-offs.

And it was the visitors who took the lead inside three minutes through Jack Watkins, the Knights not restoring parity until there were 31 seconds remaining in the period when Mac Howlett struck.

Strikes from Cole Shudra and Kieran Brown in just over a minute with each other early in the second put the hosts in control, a position they strengthened just after the halfway mark when Howlett doubled his tally.

The first five minutes of the third saw Leeds and Telford trade goals, the visitors hanging in the game first through Robert Hermann at 42.28 and then Scott McKenzie just under two minutes later.

In between Jake Witkowski struck on the power play to make it 5-2 before Jordan Griffin cancelled out McKenzie’s effort when his long ranger squeezed through Brad Day and over the line to restore the three-goal lead at 50.31.

That goal opened the floodgates briefly, Cole Shudra making it 7-3 with at 50.49 before Adam Barnes got in on the act soon after to extend the lead to five goals. Griffin completed the scoring with his second of the game, this time from the left circle, with 57 seconds remaining.

A tight affair in Basingstoke saw Shudra break the deadlock at 14.59, tapping home at the back post after good work by Zach Brooks.

Just over seven minutes of the second period had passed when the Knights doubled their lead, Witkowski combining well with Brooks and Sam Zajac to fire home.

He doubled his tally on the power play at 34.48 but the Bison kept things interesting when George Norcliffe beat Sam Gospel on a breakaway at 37.47.

With the threat of a comeback by the hosts always there, Brown got the insurance marker his team needed, firing home his own rebound at 47.18 to make it 4-1.

The Steeldogs had a tough weekend which yielded no points, their 5-1 loss at home to Swindon Wildcats enabling Aaron Nell’s increasingly consistent team to pull to within four points of them in the standings.

Tyler Plews opened the scoring at 17.31 but it wasn’t long before the hosts were level through Alex Graham.

There was just the one goal in the second and it came for the visitors through Balint Pakozdi at 24.15, the Wildcats extending their lead on the power play just 35 seconds into the third through Colby Tower.

As the Steeldogs chased the game, Tower extended his team’s lead to 4-1 at 47.16, player-coach Aaron Nell rounding off a solid display for his team and empty-netter at 57.14.

The hosts’ disappointment came on the back of a tough night in Milton Keynes 24 hours earlier.

Trailing 3-0 at the end of the first through strikes from Deivids Sarkanis (2) and Bobby Chamberlain, the Steeldogs’ job got even harder when they fell further behind early in the second through Ross Green.

But two power play goals - the first from Matt Bissonnette, the second from Jonathan Kirk - got the visitors back in the game with just 25.29 gone, although they found themselves 5-2 adrift by the end of the period after Sam Talbot’s strike just past the halfway mark.

But four goals inside the first four minutes of the third left the visitors’ shell-shocked, Jack Hopkins, Sean Norris, Milique Martelly and Callum Field all finding their range, James Griffin and Field with a second completing the rout before the final buzzer.

Hull Seahawks’ play-off took another hit when they emerged from a doubl-header weekend with Raiders IHC with nothing to show for their efforts.

Trailing to a first-period strike from Alex Roberts in Romford on Saturday, the Seahawks levelled at 24.09 through Email Svec, although former Leeds Knights’ favourite Harry Gulliver restored the home team’s lead 11 minutes later.

Crucially, it was the hosts who struck next, Blahoslav Novák making it 3-1 at 50.57 and although Svec quickly made it a one-goal game with a power play strike at 52.53, that was close as Matty Davies’s side could get, eventually going down 4-2 after an empty-net strike from Aaron Connolly with 36 seconds remaining.

Sunday’s rematch in Hull proved just as keenly-fought, with the first goal not coming until 27.04 when Gulliver put the visitors ahead, their lead doubled just over six minutes later through Jake Sylvester.

Jake Archer got the Seahawks on the board with 59 seconds remaining to set up a tense third period, but the second goal wouldn’t come, Andrej Themar even seeing a penalty shot saved by Ethan James in the 51st minute.

With Telford also not picking up points this weekend, Hull remain 13 points off the eighth and final play-off spot but now have just 10 games remaining. Telford also have two games in hand.