Widnes Wild beat Blackburn Hawks 8-2 in a thrilling encounter at Planet Ice, as a quickfire double from Richard Haggar propelled the Wild into the lead.
Widnes continue their good run of form winning their third successive cup game, topping their group with three wins from four so far.
Vlads Vulkanov scored two in another impressive performance, he now has eight goals and six assists in the Moralee Cup.
Widnes started the first period the brighter of the two sides dominating possession for the first 10 minutes, they were unlucky not to score as Blackburn’s Mike Rogers made a handful of good saves.
They eventually broke the deadlock to rapturous applause from the Widnes faithful, as new man Kieran Beach scored after eight minutes to make it 1-0.
Blackburn responded quickly with Jared Dickinson who scored two in the latter stages of the period.
Both netminders had faced multiple shots and had stood up to the task well with Rogers stepping up on multiple occasions to stop the home side from increasing their early advantage.
Widnes’ Harrison Walker was also called into action on a few occasions but was the less troubled of the two as Widnes finished the period with 21 shots to Blackburn’s 11.
The second period started off similarly to the first with Widnes looking to regain some control on the game and to even the score.
Walker took a heavy hit by the puck one minute in and had to be taken off to be replaced by Evan Coles. This didn’t seem to shake Widnes as they went after the Hawks in search of the equaliser.
After a few penalties for Blackburn, Vlads Vulkanov managed to get a scrappy goal-line equaliser, from here it seemed to be plain sailing for Widnes.
The penalties began to pile up for Blackburn as they capitulated their good finish to the first period.
Haggar scored two more before the end of the period to make the score 4-2 going into the last 20 minutes.
The third period began even worse for Blackburn as both Jakob Hajek and Vulkanov managed to get in one on one with Rogers and slotted them home for a comfortable 6-2 lead.
By this point the away side’s heads began to drop, more penalties ensued and after a seventh goal by Tom Stubley a fight broke out.
Reece Cairney-Witter got in to face Coles and clattered him with his knee, the netminder was down holding his face as his teammates ran over in support.
The resulting fight left Cairney-Witters with a major penalty and five minutes in the box.
This and a few other fouls temporarily left Blackburn with just three outfield players to five of Wild.
Tristan Grimshaw capitalised on this, scoring Widnes’ eighth and final goal of the day with two minutes left to play.
The Hawks fell foul of a few penalties and concede their third straight loss in the cup.
Netminders Rogers and Coles were their respective teams’ MVPs in what proved to be a great Midlands Cup clash.
