THE Basingstoke Bison’s hopes of making the English Premier League Cup semi-final hopes suffered a major setback, as they lost to local rivals the Guildford Flames.

Former Herd netminder Dean Skinns in his first game of the season produced an excellent 28 shot shut-out as the visitors scored twice in the final period to win 2-0.

With the British shot stopper in goal, it gave Guildford the chance to ice five imports forwards for the first time in EPL history.

Despite this, it was a game of few clear cut chances, in a contest which got more feisty as it went on, as referee Matt Thompson had a very inconsistent game.

The home side had the better start helped by an early powerplay.

Guildford’s first real testing shot came after the halfway stage from Tuomas Santavuori.

A good spell of Bison pressure late on in the session was ended with a Guildford powerplay.

The second session started with the Flames having a man advantage, which saw Matic Kralj test Tomas Hiadlovsky after a super move and then Ciaran Long and Shaun Thompson both forced Skinns into saves with their team shorthanded.

A Bison powerplay saw Dan Davies deflect a shot inches wide and then Hiadlovsky took matters into his own hands, after man of the match Jakub Kubis hit him in the face. He tripped up the Guildford forward which gave the visitors another powerplay.

As the intensity of the game increased so did the hits and Santavuori over stepped the mark as he sent Derek Roehl head first into the boards. He received a 2+10 penalty for his troubles.

Referee Thompson didn’t endear himself to the home fans as Bison’s Vanya Antonov was up ended by Tom Duggan, catching the Guildford player with his stick.

Much to the disbelief of the Bison faithful only Antonov departed to the sin bin and Marek Maslonka went close on the powerplay.

In the final second of the middle session, a breakaway by Campbell saw the Herd draw another powerplay.

The Flames started the final period with a man advantage and Kubis on the turn tested Hiadlovsky, while Tomas Karpov went close shorthanded.

The deadlock was finally broken at 42:59, as a lovely flowing move saw Andrew McKinney set-up Jens Eriksson to score with a wrist shot from the slot.

The Bison tried to get an equaliser, as Shaun Thompson and Rene Jarolin both tested Skinns.

Then with five minutes left in the contest, the Herd were given a great opportunity to level things, as Kevin Phillips followed Danny Meyers into the sin bin.

This gave the Bison a two man advantage for 102 seconds, but they were unable to find a way past Skinns as he made saves from Jarolin and Long.

In a desperate attempt to send the game into overtime, the home side pulled their netminder with 66 seconds left, but it was Guildford who scored into the empty net thanks to Santavuori.

At the final buzzer the teams exchanged words and there was a bit of pushing and shoving after a Joe Baird hit on Maslonka.

The penalty count was swelled as Baird received 2+10 for checking from behind, while team mate Declan Balmer got 2+2 for roughing and a 10 minute misconduct penalty as did Guildford’s Jez Lundin.

The Bison have no game this evening, but the Buffalo are in home action against the Wightlink Buccaneers which starts at 6.30pm.

The Herd are back in action on Saturday (6.30pm) when the Manchester Phoenix are in town.