Leeds Knights see lead at top cut but they still remain the team to beat ... in regulation

Still to be beaten in regulation, Leeds Knights remain top of the NIHL National standings this morning. But only just.

A six-point weekend for Milton Keynes Lightning - the first team to beat the Knights this season - has seen them close the gap to a single point, although Ryan Aldridge’s team - emphatic 5-1 winners at Telford Tigers last night - do have two games in hand.

Both teams must remain wary of third-placed Peterborough Phantoms, who posted another maximum return to sit one point behind the Lightning.

Star of the weekend for the Knights - at least in terms of points production - has to be Cole Shudra, who followed up his two goals in a 3-2 shootout defeat to Telford with a 3+1 night against the same opponents in Shropshire 24 hours later.

But it wasn’t just Shudra’s second-period hat-trick that effectively settled the game at Telford, all five of Leeds’ goals coming in the middle section, in response to Jason Silverthorn’s power play opener at 16.50.

Shudra was first to strike, just 25 seconds in after the restart, before he completed his hat-trick with two more in just over three minutes, his last of the evening coming with 29.25 on the clock.

Momentum was clearly with the Knights, who then poleaxed the Tigers with a fourth, this time through captain Kieran Brown.

Five minutes later, Brooks was found by Matt Haywood to make it 5-1, the third period proving a largely uneventful passage of play.

The scoreline - and certainly the second period display - will have gone some way to appeasing head coach Aldridge who felt his team deserved what they got the night before on home ice.

A goalless first period continued until just after the halfway point when Brodie Jesson - who briefly skated for Leeds Chiefs back in 2019-20 - broke the deadlock at 32.17.

That man Shudra came to the hosts’ rescue with his first of the night just over four minutes later and he was needed again in the third period when his second of the evening at 47.32 cancelled out Vladimir Luka’s 46th-minute marker.

Both teams remained firm meaning a shoot-out was required - Leeds’ first of the season - while Grant Cooper and Brown missed, Luka and Finley Howells beat Sam Gospel.

Haywood got one back for the Knights, but no more found their past Brad Day in the Telford net.

Afterwards, a frustrated Aldridge said: “I don’t think we were good enough right from the get-go, we took the first period off.

“We played better in the second and they made some really big saves in that period but, overall, we just didn’t do enough in certain areas.

“Some people are a little bit comfortable right now and maybe some of them think we’re going to win without having to work hard. That isn’t the case.”