Telford Tigers condemned to heavy 8-2 defeat at MK Lightning

Tom Watkins' visitors, who had been in good form, were condemned to a 8-2 defeat in Buckinghamshire on Saturday night.

Tigers had won three on the spin and four in five NIHL National clashes but were a distant second best throughout.

The visitors trailed 5-0 and 7-1 and were never able to put a significant dent in Lightning's heavy advantage as the hosts climbed to within two points in the standings.

Milton Keynes impressed with eight different scorers on a night they had too much for Telford, who gave the hosts a leg up with costly penalties early on.

The hosts went 2-0 up inside 10 minutes through Patrik Forsberg and Sean Norris on the power play after Tigers' Patrick Brown had been pulled for a high stick.

A high stick penalty proved the undoing against as Bryndley Capps, who was Tigers' man of the match, was sent to the bin and Lightning struck an important third just before the end of the first period through Toms Rutkis.

The second period was just two-and-a-half minutes old when the hosts added their fourth with Jordan Cownie's effort and Jordan Spadafore made it five after 33 minutes.

Tigers then made a high stick penalty work in their favour as Cownie was pulled and Watkins' men got one back through Capps, who was set up by Canada duo Eric Henderson and David Thomson.

Any hopes of improving on a 5-1 deficit early in the final period went up in smoke inside two minutes as Harry Gulliver scored a sixth.

Jarvis Hunt made it seven with five minutes remaining.

Thomson scored Tigers' second inside the final three minutes but the hosts deservedly had the final say as Milique Martelly completed the run of different scorers on a clinical evening.