The Flames finally found the key to grounding the Milton Keynes Lightning in the form of a significant 2nd period shot advantage and 3 unanswered goals to collect a 4-2 win; the first win in 5 starts against the league’s leading side.  The home team opened well with a Gary Clarke marker at 6:53.

The Lightning replied to the opener less than 30 seconds later through Monir Kalgoum to even the score, then added a Michael Wales powerplay goal at 9:22 to take a lead that they held for the remainder of the period.  In the 2nd, Martin Masa pulled the Flames back level at 25:23 on the powerplay before Nathan Rempel finished a 2 on 1 break, opting to shoot himself and slipping the puck under Barry Hollyhead from in close for a 3-2 Flames lead.  Jez Lundin doubled the margin 31 seconds before the period clock timed out then helped his team through a scoreless closing period to generate the win.

24 hours earlier, for the 3rd consecutive occasion, the Slough Jets were the opponents.  The pattern of trading wins in the compressed series continued as the Jets shook off a 4-2 cup semi final loss 48 hours prior to send the Flames back home with a 4-1 defeat in league play.  Blaz Emersic, quickly becoming a Flames pest, was at it again with his 2nd hattrick in the 3 meetings so far.  The Slovenian forward opened the scoring at the 5 minute mark and then doubled the lead with another, the game winner as things turned out, at 12:19.  They added two more in the middle frame with a Peter Poljacek strike ahead of another Emersic marker, this time shorthanded, to complete 40 minutes with a 4-0 lead.  The Flames tallied their only offence in the final period when Lukas Smital scored in the 48th minute to complete the scoring without impacting the ultimate result.

Flames Head Coach Paul Dixon was impressed with Sunday but was still scratching his head over an unexplainable performance in Slough:

“If somebody was forcing us to pick only one of those games, we definitely picked the right one to win.  We have not turned MK over yet this season so it was nice to not only win, but to play a game that really resembles the ability we have and give the indication that we will be able to play with them in any key situations down the road if that is what circumstances dictate.  We played full intensity from start to finish and arrived at the rink like a team on a mission to get the points and we did.  For that we are very pleased.  However, in that context, you ask yourself, where was that the night before?  In Slough, only a couple of days after a strong cup semi win against the same team, we turned up absolutely not ready to play.  With the exception of perhaps the last 10 minutes of the game we were definitely the 2nd best team on the ice.  Consistency is the name of the game and somehow we need to get Sunday’s level in our mindset ahead of the 2nd leg of the cup this week and the run into the playoff championship.”

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