Coventry Blaze 4, Basingstoke Bison 2

Basingstoke boss Sheppard described the defeat on Sunday, November 12, as one of their best road games in recent weeks, as the Herd have been suffering from woeful performances away from their own barn recently.

It was the visitors who scored the opening goal as Greg Owen converted Brad Cruikshank's rebound at 24:35.

Two minutes later, the Blaze were level as Barrie Moore converted an Ashley Tait pass at the back post.

The Herd then fell into penalty trouble as Farrand and Mark DeSantis went to the sin bin in quick succession.

The home side made the most of the two-man advantage as Dan Carlson found the roof of the net.

The visitors were soon in penalty trouble again at the start of the final session, but, having killed the five-on-three, the Blaze scored on the one-man advantage as man-of-the-match Rumun Ndur netted.

Just 21 seconds later and man-of-the-match Cruikshank made it 3-2 as he put away a Kevin Bergin rebound to become the top goal-scorer in the Elite League with his 15th goal of the season.

Coventry made sure of the win with their third powerplay goal of the game from Samy Nasreddine in the final two minutes.

Scoring; Blaze: Moore 1+1, Carlson, Nasreddine, Ndur 1+0, Calder 0+2, Cloutier, Simonton, Stewart, Tait 0+1; Bison: Cruikshank 1+1, Owen 1+0, Bergin, DeSantis 0+1. Shots on goal: Koenig 20, Cruickshank 41. Penalties: Blaze 6, Bison 14.