Milton Keynes Lightning this Saturday host Slough Jets in a battle which is sure to be high on effort and excitement, as Nick Poole’s men continue their battle to regain the form which saw them riding high in the league for so long earlier this season.

Last weekend saw the Lightning regain their scoring ability in style, putting six goals past Swindon.  But 24 hours later, a slow start against Manchester Phoenix cost Lightning dearly, conceding three goals in the opening nine minutes and presenting them with a step too far despite rallying strongly for the rest of the game.

This Saturday sees the visit of Slough, currently sitting equal third in the EPL table with Sheffield.   Last time the Jets visited the Thunderdome in December, Lightning were 5-4 winners, with four of those goals coming in a 15 minute bombardment of the visitors’ net.  Despite Slough recovering to equal the score at 4-4, the hosts remained focused and the winning goal came on a powerplay.

Player-coach Nick Poole knows that this weekend’s game will provide a stern test of his team’s ability but he is adamant that Lightning’s work towards a full recovery will continue.  “We know we lost our way a little for finding the back of the net,” he said.  “Nobody is more disappointed about that than we are – and nobody is more determined to put it right than we are.  We’ve worked on it a lot in training and that started to pay off last weekend with six goals against Swindon.  And you can’t say it was ‘only’ Swindon – they beat Slough and Basingstoke the previous weekend, so they’re no pushovers.  We were very disappointed with the way we started the match in Manchester and gifted them a 3-0 lead in the opening 10 mimutes. However, from then on we matched them and played some very good hockey. Against good teams we know we have to be switched on for 60 minutes and that will be the case this coming weekend against two very competitive sides.

“Tiki (Tuomas Tikkanen) was absolutely thrilled to get on the score sheet two nights running last week – we knew it was coming and he did too – and now he wants more!  The third line has worked incredibly hard and that’s shown with Grant, Matty and Muzzy all getting goals in  the last couple of weeks.

“Everyone was really happy to get the win over Swindon and even though we were disappointed about Sunday’s end result, we didn’t let it get us down too much because we were still scoring – we stopped them getting a shut-out.  There’s no reason at all why the goals shouldn’t keep coming this weekend – we’ll continue to work hard in training, and push Slough as hard as we can. “

Face off against Slough Jets is at 7pm this Saturday at Planet Ice in Milton Keynes.