Leeds Knights get their lines spot on to maintain NIHL National winning momentum

The win north of the border on Saturday night extended the team’s winning streak to seven games ahead of Sunday’s eagerly-anticipated encounter back on home ice against Swindon Wildcats.

Matt Haywood led the way with a welcome double, with further strikes coming from Bow Neely, captain Kieran Brown and Ethan Hehir.

But they were made to fight all the way by Martin Grubb’s team - embroiled in a fierce three-way battle for the bottom two play-off spots with Bees IHC and Raiders IHC - with netminder Sam Gospel coming to the Knights’ rescue on a number of occasions.

Prior to the trip, Knights’ head coach Aldridge had highlighted the shallow neutral zone at the Sharks’ rink as an issue which made playing there at best awkward.

Preparations in practice on Thursday and Friday clearly paid off, however.

“It is a difficult zone to get to grips with and I think I probably got it wrong on the last two times we played there,” said Aldridge.

“So we talked about coming deep into our zone and almost ignoring the neutral zone and attacking with speed and it worked a bit better.

“For me it was the best we’ve played in that rink. We even changed where the blue lines were at our rink at practice, just in order to try and adapt a little bit.”

It was from an unlikely source that the deadlock was broken in Dumfries when Neely latched on to a Mac Howlett feed to put the Knights ahead with 13.30 on the board.

There was little to choose between the two sides - the memory of a shoot-out defeat in January no doubt fresh in the Knights’ minds - and it was the hosts who struck next when Nolan Gardiner made it 1-1 in the 37th minute.

But, within a minute, the Knights were ahead again when Haywood scored from close range to ensure his team went in ahead at the second intermission.

Three and a half minutes into the third it was Haywood who doubled the visitors’ lead, one that was increased further when Brown blasted home on a breakaway at 50.24 while the Knights were short-handed.

Ethan Hehir then made it 5-1 with a fierce blast before Scott Henderson grabbed a late consolation when beating Gospel with just 49 seconds remaining.