After a 10 game winning role dating all the way back to mid December, the Guildford Flames ice hockey club were unceremoniously brought back to earth on Saturday and Sunday with a pair of defeat; first in Basingstoke 4-3 to the Bison and then again at home 24 hours later against table topping Milton Keynes Lightning.

On Sunday night the league leading visitors showed no signs of relinquishing the top table spot after jumping out to a 2 goal lead in the first period before staying one step ahead the rest of the way to secure a 4-2 win. Joakim Wiklander put them in front in the 10^th minute and Adam Brittle added another at 16:06. The Flames replied with a Martin Masa goal not long before the 1^st interval to cut the lead in half. At 25:56 an unlucky misfire on a Flames powerplay turned into a 2 on 1 break for the visiting side. Nick Poole collected an Adam Carr feed before tucking it past Mark Lee to extend their lead to a pair. Just under 3 minutes later, though, Lukas Smital unloaded a quick wrist shot in response to a perfect Masa drop pass to pull the Flames back to within 1. Not long after that, however, a delayed Flames penalty call while they were already shorthanded resulted in the Lightning’s 4^th goal at 33:02 thanks to Lukas Zatopek who took his side to the final session on a solid 4-2 lead before the clubs exchanged just 13 shots between them in a scoreless closing period.

One night prior, a determined Bison group gored the travelling Flames to abruptly halt the 10 game winning stretch with a 4-3 defeat of Spectrum’s men. Martin Masa opened the scoring at 3:40. An Ondrej Lauko strike inside the last 5 minutes of the session sent the clubs to the first break deadlocked at 1 each. Just beyond the midway point of the outing, Mindaugas Kieras put the home side ahead by a goal, but seconds after that Lukas Smital replied to knot the game once again. A Steve Moria powerplay goal in the 36^th minute opened another 1 goal margin that the Bison held into the 3^rd. Andrew Hemmings doubled the lead at 50:17 to all but guarantee the win. Another Masa goal in the 55^th minute offered a late breath of hope to Flames supporters, but it would be the final goal of the night in the deliverance of the Flames first loss since December 12^th.

Flames Head Coach Paul Dixon expressed his frustration with the weekend results:

“We knew on the way into the weekend that we had our work cut out for us. Basingstoke is an excellent side and at home they are especially tough. We had a lot of confidence after a lengthy stretch where goals were flowing and wins were piling up in bunches so we were obviously feeling good about our chances for continued success. In Basingstoke we got out to a great start but in a strange way that seemed to spark the Bison and they really stepped up a gear from that early moment. They were deserving of the lead they had by the end of the 2^nd. We played much better for about the final 10 minutes, but that was leaving things a bit late against an experienced team who know full well how to play with a lead. On Sunday, I don’t think we played poorly. We ran into a team playing at their peak and they put in one of the strongest two way games we have seen in a very long time. They play a very together game, moving from zone to zone as a complete unit. They have excellent speed; they demonstrate a good offensive punch to finish some chances; and they second to none in their own end. They collapse as a group at just the right moments, they get sticks in lanes, tip pucks out of the way, block shots and just generally make great scoring opportunities very difficult to come by. Their goals against record is not by luck and we will need to figure something out if we are going to solve them the next couple of times we meet. It was a big weekend, and the losses are undoubtedly costly for us, but we have been playing well so I think we need to keep our last month and a half in perspective. We can be pleased with how far we have come since early December and this is no time to throw all that out just because of a weekend setback. It is up to us to train hard this week and get ready for another big weekend and see what we can do to get ourselves back on our feet.”

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