Match Report | 28th January 2007 » Sheffield Scimitars 2-2 Milton Keynes

Face Off: 7.30pm, Wednesday 24th January 2007

A photo taken during a Sheffield Scimitars' game

The Sheffield Scimitars were playing in their first 2-legged semi-final of the EPL Cup in their second season at this level, and were playing a re-vitalised Milton Keynes team. The first leg of the Cup was played midweek in Milton Keynes two weeks ago, when Sheffield came away on the wrong end of a 2-0 loss, meaning that tonight they had to beat Milton Keynes by 3 goals. Sheffield was missing influential Robert Dowd who was unfortunately injured in the last 22 seconds of Sunday's league game in Swindon, but with Andrew Turner returning from an injury.

Milton Keynes seemed to be the hungrier of the two teams in the first period with Pasi Raitanen making many good saves to keep his team in with a chance, despite Milton Keynes visiting the penalty box after just 0.08 on the clock. The Scimitars did well to hold the score to 0-0 at the end of the first, with 17 saved shots to Lightning's 10.

The second period was rather more physical as Sheffield returned some of the Lightning's checking, and then scored a short-handed goal at 25.07 when Matt Towe went in alone to score the 1st goal of the game. The Scimitars killed off the rest of that penalty successfully but the visitors equalised at 29.31 after Raitanen had made the initial save but the puck was deflected in off a player. Sheffield contined to work hard but were out-shot by 16 to 5 and they were unable to get any sustained momentum going. Milton Keynes scored again at 38.23 by a Kieras slapshot on the powerplay with the period ending 1-2.

The Scimitars equalised the score on the night to 2-2 (2-4 on aggregate), when Stewart scored on the powerplay right in front of net, after Sheffield had swapped goalies again to allow for the maximum number of import out-players. Sheffield continued to work hard and make some nice plays, especially so in the third period but it was not to be their night. Hollyhead, in goal for Milton Keynes, made 19 out of 21 saves to earn himself MOM, with Pasi Raitanen making 35 out of 37 saves.

Sheffield conceded a 5-on-3 powerplay to the opposition in the last 3 minutes of the game and again tried to take the advantage by replacing Raitanen with the back-up netminder, Jones, but could not score the relevant number of goals to take the game to overtime. Sheffield's MOM was Steve Duncombe. Milton Keynes will now meet Guildford in the Final, after their match went into 45 seconds of overtime to get the winning goal against Slough. Sheffield have a home double-header weekend with Saturday's game facing off at 4.15pm v Telford Tigers.

Scoring Details: Sheffield: Stewart & Towe 1+0, Roberts, Shudra & Millie 0+1 M. Keynes: Clarke 1+1, Kieras 1+0, Carr, Moore & Doran 0+1

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Next Match Report: Sheffield Scimitars 10-4 Telford Tigers
3rd February 2007
Previous Match Report: Swindon Wildcats 1-4 Sheffield Scimitars
23rd January 2007

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