Lightning enjoyed a 3-2 defeat of Bracknell last Saturday, taking the sting out of a determined and organised Bees team.  Nick Poole’s side was buoyed not just by being at full strength for the first time in several weeks, but also by the surprise presentation, just minutes before face-off, of a match shirt signed by supporters to show their backing of the team.  And that faith was repaid when the Lightning stayed focused even when taken to overtime, a powerplay blue line blast from Lukas Zatopek giving Lightning their first home victory since 7 January.

On Thursday, Lightning plan to use home advantage to overturn a 0-1 half-time score in the EPL Cup Semi Final second leg.  The first leg score failed to tell the story of a battling MKL who denied Sheffield until 56m 18s, even then against the run of play.  Coach Nick Poole is optimistic that his team can move a step closer to their first piece of silverware this season.  “After a disappointing run of results we’ve made some definite improvements, and some of our most recent results really don’t reflect that. We know it’s a work in progress and that Sheffield are playing very well at the moment, so Thursday will be hard work – we won’t hide from that.  But every single one of us is up for that challenge, and we’ll go into this game as we do every game: looking for the win.”

Just 48 hours later, Lightning host a Swindon Wildcats side who have won only one of their last six games.  The Lightning have beaten Ryan Aldridge’s side in three of their four meetings so far this season, but Poole acknowledges that the Wildcats can never be taken for granted.  “We have a good record against them this season, but they’ve never made life easy for us”, he said, “They’re fighting to put daylight between themselves and Peterborough in the table, to make sure they qualify for the play-offs.  In Tom Murdy and Dean Skinns they have a fantastic netminding duo but we’ll be making them work very hard on Saturday.  Blaz and Jaimo (Leigh Jamieson) are determined to get back to scoring regularly and Tiki (Tuomas Tikkanen) is getting closer to scoring with every shift.  When it all clicks again, opposition defences had better watch out.

“All of us were really touched by the shirt signed by the supporters”, continued the coach.  “We had no idea that was happening!  We went back to the dressing room after warm-up  last Saturday and it was there waiting for us.  For fans to go out of their way to do that spontaneously is an amazing gesture – we already knew we had amazing support here in Milton Keynes, and this proves it, so we want to say a huge thank you to everyone who was involved”.

Lightning take on Sheffield Steeldogs at Planet Ice Milton Keynes at 7.30pm on Thursday 16 February, then host Swindon Wildcats at 7.00pm on Saturday 18 February.