BASINGSTOKE, UK- Victor Kubenko enjoyed his best points tally of the season so far with 2+2 in the Bison’s 5-3 road win at the Bracknell Bees on Sunday night.
The Slovak forward in his first season in Britain has certainly been putting in some useful performances without seeing the points return it justifies.
The first 11 league games for the native of Zvolen had only yielded eight points split evenly between goals and assists.
The 6ft 3in forward arrived in Basingstoke having spent the past two years in Poland and has looked very much at home in the EPL.
Maybe the pressure was on him after fellow Slovakian Ondrej Lauko’s superb rookie year in Britain, but their playing styles are very different as Kubenko has more of a physical edge to his game.
This could be because he has previously played in the ECHL with the New Orleans Brass.
“Victor has been frustrated about not scoring and getting two against Bracknell is going to do him the world of good. Goals often come in patches so hopefully this will see him go on a scoring streak,” said Bison player/coach Steve Moria.
The game in Bracknell also saw a first league start for Dean Skinns a goalie who returned to the Herd in the summer.
He made 36 saves in the game as Basingstoke changed things up following the previous night’s 7-6 loss to Guildford in which Tom Annetts had been between the pipes.
“Dean is a model professional, a good goaltender and solid for us. Tommy has won us a lot of hockey games so far this season, but I felt we needed to change things as our defense is not playing as well as I would like,” said Moria.
Defensive hockey certainly went out the window for both sides last Saturday as Guildford won a goal feast 7-6.
The game winner being the first time the Flames led in the game having trailed 5-3 and 6-4.
It was Basingstoke who edged the first period 2-1 as Ciaran Long and Ollie Bronnimann scored either side of a Martin Masa goal.
The second session saw six goals in the space of five minutes as both sides scored three times.
Lauko with two and Long scored for the home side, while defensemen David Savage and Neil Liddiard replied for Guildford along with David Longstaff.
The Bison looked to heading for victory when Lauko completed his first hat-trick of this season’s campaign, but two goals in the space of 14 seconds from Matt Towe and Nathan Rempel tied the game at 46:27.
It was left to Ben Campbell the seventh different scorer on the night for the Flames to score the game winner 10 minutes from time.
On Sunday at Bracknell, honours at the end of the first period were even as Bison’s Tony Redmond goal was cancelled out by Bracknell’s Jaroslav Cesky.
The game was won by the Herd with three unanswered goals in three minutes of the second session as Kubenko grabbed the first two and Ollie Bronnimann the third.
The Bees gave themselves a lifeline thanks to goal from Alex Barker which made the score 4-2 after 40 minutes.
It got even closer when Michal Pinc narrowed the gap to one five minutes into the final period, but Long made sure of the 5-3 victory.
It means the Bison are now 8-0 against the Bees in EPL action in the past two seasons.
Despite it being a split weekend, the Bison remained in third spot in the standings, but are now only one point ahead of Slough.
This weekend, the Bison are hopefully British forward Chris Wiggins will return from injury for a double header weekend of action against the Sheffield Steeldogs.
On Saturday night, the Herd will be looking for their first win in three on home ice, while on Sunday they could equal their EPL record for road wins with a fourth on the trot following on from victories at Peterborough, Slough and Bracknell.
Contact the author Graham.Merry@Prohockeynews.com
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