Until last weekend, Lightning had enjoyed a run of seven consecutive victories including the 6-3 demolition of league leaders Manchester Phoenix, and 0-5 whitewash of second-placed Guildford in the Surrey side's own barn.  The Flames, however, were too hot to handle at Planet Ice last week, sending the home side to only their first defeat since early January.
Lightning immediately bounced back from the disappointment of last Saturday’s loss by taking out their disappointment on Bracknell Bees, leaving The Hive with two points from a deserved 3-7 victory 24 hours later, and now have two important games to look forward to this coming weekend – away to Slough Jets on Saturday evening, followed by the massive home game against third-placed Basingstoke on Sunday.

Last time the Bison came to town in November, Milton Keynes stunned them with five unanswered goals in a hard-fought and very physical game which saw 14 minor penalties between the two sides.  Lightning took advantage by scoring three powerplay goals, two from former Bison skater Michael Wales, with other goals coming from Grant McPherson, a first Lightning goal for Jacob Heron and the home side’s final goal of the night from another former Basingstoke player, Gary Clarke.

Whilst Milton Keynes have steadily accumulated points recently, Bison’s form has faltered with six defeats from ten games since the turn of the year, including a 10-3 thrashing by Bracknell Bees.  With the tightest defence in the league, MK  Lightning will set out to contain the threat from Bison’s high-scoring forwards Oliver Bronnimann, Ondrej Lauko and Viktor Kubenko who have scored almost two-thirds of their team’s goals this season between them.

With both Basingstoke and Saturday’s opponents Slough Jets within touching distance in the EPL table, Lightning’s Poole is convinced that his side can catch them by continuing to believe in their ability.  “We have to forget the result against Guildford last week and move onwards and upwards, and we continued that progress by beating Bracknell last Sunday. 
“Lightning are breathing right down the necks of Slough and Basingstoke in the league table, and we have more consistency in our recent results than either of them have had since the new year.  We have games in hand over all the teams above us, so we intend to use every one of those to rack up the points and climb the table – there’s still everything to play for!”