The Morley Glass Leeds Knights secured a four-point weekend as they hosted the Sheffield Steeldogs at The Castle and made the trip down south to take on the league champions – the Swindon Wildcats.
The Knights were coming into this weekend of league action off the back of a 4-2 victory over the Basingstoke Bison the weekend prior: their first win in six games in all competitions.
The Steeldogs made the short trip up the M1 on Friday night to take on the Knights in the Yorkshire derby. The two sides had faced each other the week before in the first-leg of the National Cup Final with the Steeldogs coming out on top by three goals to one, but this time, in league action, it was the Knights in the driving seat.
Finn Bradon got the scoring started for the Knights under two-minutes into the game and by the end of the first period, the hosts had a three-goal lead with another goal from the 20-year-old forward, and one from Canadian forward Matt Bissonnette.
Head coach Ryan Aldridge praised Bradon saying: “Finn’s done that twice this year, skating down the middle of the ice, and both times, as soon as he’s picked it up, I think the whole bench know he’s going to score.
“You get Finn playing like that and you’ve got a good chance to win every night.
“I thought he was brilliant tonight.”
The Steeldogs went on to level the game by 43-minutes but Balint Pakozdi restored the Knights’ lead with a powerplay goal, only for the visitors to hit back with a powerplay goal of their own in the 55th minute – and the score was level once more.
The Castle erupted as Oli Endicott scored the winner for the Knights and secured the first two points of what would become a four-point weekend for the West Yorkshire side.
The following day, the Knights travelled to Swindon to take on the 25/26 NIHL National League Champions. Ryan Aldridge’s side caused upset on the night of the Wildcats’ trophy lift with an overtime victory after an intense battle at the Link Centre.
After 60-minutes of hockey, the two sides were level at 4-4 with goals from Edgars Bebris, Tomasz Malasinski, Logan vande Meerakker and player-coach Aaron Nell for the Wildcats, and goals from Jordan Griffin, Sam Cooper, Matt Bissonnette and Frankie O’Sullivan for the Knights.
Liam Peyton scored the goal in overtime to claim the second victory of the weekend for the Knights.
It was a night of accolades for Leeds with Jordan Griffin and Sam Cooper netting their first league goals of the season, and Frankie O’Sullivan scoring his first goals in a Knights jersey. He became the youngest player to score for the Leeds Knights at just 16 years and 73 days old, replacing Jonas Bennett who had taken the crown earlier this season.
Attention now turns to the second-leg of the National Cup Final which will take place in Sheffield on Wednesday against the Steeldogs.
The Knights are 3-1 down, but there is belief within the team that the game can be turned around, and we can retain our trophy.
After defeating the Steeldogs on Friday night, Aldridge said: “We know we’ve got to play our best [in the final] to stand a chance and give it a go.
“Am I confident that our team can? Yes, 100%. I think if a team like ours, what we’ve accomplished over the last few years, even being short, we’ve still got a lot of talent in that locker room, still got a lot of hard workers in that locker room, got a lot of guys that will sacrifice in that locker room.
“So yes, we’ll go into anybody’s building 2-0 down and still look to turn it over so we’ll see what happens.”
Knights hockey returns to The Castle on Saturday with the Romford Raiders coming to town in our penultimate home game of the regular season before a road trip down to Telford on Sunday.
