IT proved a mixed weekend for Leeds Knights as the excitement of clinching a place in the NIHL National Cup final for the second year running was tempered by a defeat in the league the following night.
The Castle was truly rocking on Friday night when the Knights hosted Swindon Wildcats in the second leg of their Cup semi-final.
Trailing 4-3 from the first leg in Swindon the previous Saturday, the Knights produced what head coach Ryan Aldridge hailed as their best performance of the season so far.
In front of a near full-house, the Knights were relentless from the start and it seemed only a matter of time before they levelled the tie overall.
But they had to wait until just after the halfway mark against a dogged Wildcats, Mac Howlett cutting in from the left before going five-hole on Renny Marr from the bottom of the left circle.
It remained too close to call for the next 20 minutes or so until a moment of inspiration from Matt Bissonnette.
The veteran forward stole the puck mid-ice before setting himself up to blast through a screen of two players from the top of the right circle and into Marr’s top right-hand corner at 51.34 to throw the home crowd into ecstasy.
Just over four minutes later, there was another loud roar from the stands when Oli Endicott made a three-on-two break count when he squeezed the puck through Marr and over the line from eight yards out, securing a 3-0 win on the night, a 6-4 aggregate victory and a place in the final for the second successive year.
It looked like the Knights would continue the good work the following night on the same home ice in the league against Peterborough Phantoms.
They found themselves 2-0 ahead at the halfway point, Balint Pakozdi breaking the deadlock at 15.20 with a well-worked goal before Kieran Brown tipped in from Lewis Baldwin to make it 2-0 just over three minutes into the second.
But a fault with one of the gates on the visitors’ bench prompted an early second intermission while rink staff attempted to mend it.
When it couldn’t be fixed, the teams returned to the ice having agreed to operate just one gate on their respective benches.
Within seconds of the restart, the Phantoms had halved the deficit through Cameron Hough’s back-handed effort from three yards out.
The real damage came in the final two minutes of the period, however, Barnabas Sari breaking free to beat Gospel at 38.51 before Hough reacted quickly to blocking a long-range shot from Bailey perre to win the subsequent foot race before firing through Gospel to double his tally for a 3-2 lead just 32 seconds later.
Brown missed a penalty shot opportunity when denied by Hayden Lavigne before Luke Ferrara made it 4-2 to the visitors on another breakaway at 54.37.
The British forward then sealed the win with an empty netter just under four minutes later, although there was time for Finley Bradon to score a consolation effort on the power play to make it 5-3 overall.
