Leeds Knights 3 Hull Seahawks 1 - Champions made to scrap all the way as NIHL National title race intensifies

The 3-1 victory had to be ground out by the hosts, against a short-benched Hull team who worked desperately hard to record a third straight win at Elland Road.

Missing several key players, Hull made it difficult for the Knights all evening, as they had done on their previous two visits this season, memories of their National Cup semi-final triumph here at the start of the month still fresh in the minds of everyone connected with Leeds.

It was a valiant effort from the visitors, but they were undone by a bit of power play magic from Knights captain Kieran Brown in the 48th minute - the man advantage brought about by a slashing call on Declan Jones that Seahawks coach Matty Davies questioned afterwards. Even then, Hull came close to ruining the hosts' night, Emil Svec denied by Sam Gospel from close range in the closing minutes before the game was made safe by an empty-net strike from Jordan Buesa with 42 seconds remaining.

“We need to be better than that,” said Knights’ head coach Ryan Aldridge. “They came in here and played well again, they always do in this building. Their young line was brilliant tonight, they outworked us in certain areas but we managed to get what were important points.”

It was Hull that had taken the lead through a clever piece of play from Owen Sobchak who picked out Finlay Ulrich in front of the net, allowing the youngster to divert the puck past a partially unsighted Gospel with 12.52 on the clock.

The Seahawks’ lead had come about somewhat against the run of play, with Hull netminder Angus Laing called upon to deny the Knights on a number of occasions, Mac Howlett going closest when trying to beat the back-up netminder at his near post from the edge of the left circle.

But it wasn’t long before the Knights were level, a neat passage of play seeing them break down the right before the puck was worked from Jake Witkowski and Buesa and across to Matt Haywood who fired past Laing from the left hash marks to make it 1-1 at 16.32.

After the break, Laing had to be alert to deny Buesa when he broke clear in the 22nd minute, while Leeds failed to create anything decent from a power play which came about as a result of Nathan Salem and Rhys Edwards being sent to the box for roughing, as Buesa on the same charge for Leeds.

Ryan Aldridge’s team thought they had got ahead just after the halfway point when good work by Noah McMullin in the Knights zone saw him find Brown down the right-hand wall from where he cut in and thought he’d forced the puck through Laing and over the line, only for the officials to disagree.

Two minutes later, at the other end, some neat interplay between Sobchak and Ulrick, saw the latter quickly find Thomas Barry in the left circle but his one-timer was diverted away by Gospel’s left pad.

Leeds enjoyed the better chances in the third but could never afford to switch off against dogged opponents who refused to let their shorter numbers hamper them in any way.

The killer blow came when Jones headed to the box, with just under a minute of the resulting powerplay having passed when McMullin switched play quickly from the left to Brown who thrashed a one-timer into Laing’s top left-hand corner from the top of the right circle at 47.41.

It was almost 3-1 just under three minutes later when Buesa’s tip off a McMullin shot cannoned back off the left-hand post with Laing having to prove his alertness twice in quick succession to deny Brown and then Fin Bradon from close range.

Svec almost levelled from a Sobchak set-up but it wasn’t long after Laing headed to the bench to provide Hull with the extra skater that Leeds made the game safe, Buesa firing in from the neutral zone to seal a fourth straight victory for the hosts.

They now head to Bristol on Saturday before returning home to host Raiders 24 hours later.

Hull - whose bench was shortened further by the loss of centre Nathan Salem in the second period due to an injury - head to Milton Keynes on Saturday. The Knights will no doubt be hoping their Yorkshire rivals can do them a massive favour by emulating the road win they enjoyed the last time they travelled down to Buckinghamshire in September.

“We deserved more out of that game,” said Davies, already missing Lee Bonner through suspension, Bobby Chamberlain and Tom Stubley due to injury and captain Sam Towner because of work commitments.

“Our first line outplayed their team. I think we had plenty of grade A chances in the first and more in the second which we just didn’t capitalise on.

“But we’ve got five or six guys out now and it’s tough. My second line there was Dec Jones, Rhys Edwards and Owen Bruton and we played with that Leeds team all the way and I don’t think anyone here could deny that.

“We could and perhaps could have got a point there tonight so it’s disappointing to come away with nothing.

“I’m not disappointed with the result, but certainly not the performance.”