BASINGSTOKE, UK: The Bison ended the regular season with a run of four victories which was ideal boost ahead of the defence of their play-off crown.
The Herd’s recorded their first win at Milton Keynes Lightning this season with a 3-1 success thanks to goals from the big scoring line forwards Ciaran Long, Joe Greener and Doug Sheppard.
The Bison now turn their attentions to a quarter-final play-off match-up against the Manchester Phoenix and these sides last met in the play-offs in last season’s final at Coventry which the Herd won 5-3.
This looks a very intriguing match-up as in the league series honours were even with three wins each all on home ice.
However, the Bison did only lose the last two encounters in Manchester after a shoot-out and this will not happen this weekend as the first leg of the two game series is the Phoenix home game.
Being the score over aggregate over 120 minutes a draw is possible at Manchester and would set-up a really interesting game in Basingstoke as the Herd won all three home games in the regular season by a single goal.
So it is sure to be edge of seats stuff for the Bison and their fans if they are to make the play-off finals for the third consecutive year and maintain player/coach Doug Sheppard’s 100 per cent record since joining the team of always getting them to Coventry.
They will have to stop the two big scoring lines of the Phoenix with Michal Psurny currently leading the scoring against the Bison with five goals while fellow Czech imports Frankie Bakrlik and Robin Kovar are not far behind on four goals.
Bakrlik is the only player to score a point in every game between the Bison and Phoenix this season.
The Herd will have to make sure they are switched on from the first face-off as Kovar after just 21 seconds in the first encounter of the season.
The Bison will look to their top line of Long, Greener and Sheppard to do the damage, but Aaron Connolly and Joe Rand are also expected to make an impact on the scoring chance.
“We have had some close games against Manchester this year and I do not expect this series to be any different,” said Bison player/coach Sheppard.
Contact the author Graham.Merry@Prohockeynews.
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