Injury crisis strikes ahead of busy time (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Herd face three games in five days without star men

1:00pm Thursday 9th February 2012 in Ice Hockey By Graham Merry

WITH three games in five days coming up it is not the best time for the Basingstoke Bison to suffer an injury crisis in their ranks.

However, unfortunately that is what has happened as the Herd have doubts over Slovak forward Viktor Kubenko (ankle), British defencemen Dan Harris and Sam Oakford, who both have upper body injuries.

A busy five days of action, begins with a trip to Swindon on Saturday night (face-off 5.45pm).

That is quickly followed by Sunday’s home game with the Milton Keynes Lightning (face-off 5.30pm).

The trio of games is completed with the daunting prospect of a trip to league leaders Guildford on Wednesday night (face-off 7.30pm).

The Bison will head to Swindon looking to complete a clean sweep of league victories over their Wiltshire rivals as they currently lead the series 5-0, with their latest success being a 5-4 victory over the Wildcats last Saturday.

However, Herd head man Steve Moria knows that Swindon will be keen to break the sequence.

Moria said: “At the beginning of the season Swindon looked to have a better team than us, so I am surprised we have done so well, but obviously no one wants to suffer a 6-0 series loss.

“I expect some players to be out of the line-up so everyone else is going to have to step up and we need some heroes this weekend.

“We have come back in the last two games against them to win, but I will be looking for us to score first and take it from there.”

Swindon are currently seventh, but only three points above ninth placed Peterborough who are hunting a top eight play-off spot.

On Sunday night, Basingstoke will want to break their scoring duck against MK as so far this season they have been shut-out twice against the Lightning, but they won the last encounter at the end of January. The Lightning are just above the sixth-placed Herd in the standings and were in action last night in Sheffield, before entertaining Bracknell looking to end their recent losing slump.

Looking ahead to the game Moria said: “I felt we did not play badly against MK in both the previous two home games.

“We were just unable to get on the scoreboard.

“We are not going to panic on Sunday. We know we are up against the best defensive team in the league, but we are determined to get a result.”