FORMER Basingstoke Buffalo netminder Jordan Lawday produced a super performance for the Cardiff Fire, as he limited the Basingstoke Bison to just five goals on Saturday night.

The Basingstoke-born shot stopper was in action for the whole 60 minutes, as the Herd dominated the game out shooting the visitors 52-7.

The home side gave a debut to Oscar Evans and he did everything but score in his first outing for the senior team.

The Bison also had forward Dan Davies back in their line-up, but were minus the injured Ivan Antonov, Sam Brooks, Grant Rounding and Stuart Mogg.

From the opening face-off the home side went on the attack and opened the scoring at 2:23 as man of the match Tomas Karpov netted a Kurt Reynolds rebound.

The Bison piled on the pressure, as Karpov set-up Paul Petts, who was denied by a great save.

Karpov then hit the post from a nice pass from Evans, before Aaron Connolly and Davies combined and Roman Malinik was just unable to put the puck under Lawday.

The Bison doubled their lead at 13:01 from Ryan Sutton, the forward started the move and after a lovely give and go pass to Paul Petts hammered the puck home.

The Herd then netted a third, Davies, celebrating his return from injury, as he fired into the top corner.

The second session continued like the first, with Lawday called into action to make a number of good saves.

The Fire then on a rare attack scored their only goal of the contest at 38:23.

David Christian netted from the slot beating Bison’s Welsh goalie Dan Weller-Evans.

Just seconds later, Lawday came up with a great pad save to deny the Herd’s Malinik, as it stayed 3-1 at the second buzzer.

The final period, saw the home side add two more goals to the scoreline with Karpov getting both, the first being after good work from Sutton and Davies.

Karpov then completed his hat-trick at 46:25, as he converted a pass from Connolly.

After this Cardiff went close on their only powerplay of the night, as former Bison Nicky Chinn forced Weller-Evans into a pad save.

The last chance of the game fell to Evans with 15 seconds left, but once again Lawday produced the save to deny him, as the home side won 5-1.

After the game head coach Doug Sheppard said: “I think Oscar (Evans) had a great debut and it was nice to see Dan (Davies) back. I thought Jordan had a good game in goal for them and made at least six top class saves.”

The Bison will now look for a quick double over Cardiff, as they travel to Wales today to face the Fire again.