Coventry Blaze 2, Basingstoke Bison 2(after overtime)

THE Wella Bison earned another point on the road, this time at Coventry on Sunday night after a 2-2 tie.

The visitors could have gone ahead in the opening seconds after Markku Takala had sent Joe Ciccarello clear, but Jody Lehman came up with the save.

A couple of Blaze powerplays brought Bison man-of-the-match Curtis Cruickshank into the action, before the visitors had their own man advantage as Blaze's Steve Carpenter departed for slashing.

Just as the penalty ran out, Steve Chartrand sent a long pass to Hil-ton Ruggles and the Blaze forward beat the Bison goalie, slipping the puck between his legs at 16:32.

On the next Blaze penalty, the home side struck again, this time shorthanded, as Ashley Tait made the most of a Joel Poirier pass at 18:40.

After the break, the visitors clawed their way back into the contest as Takala found Blake Sorensen and his pass to the back post was converted by Ciccarello at 26:55.

A tripping call on Michael Tasker at 33:04 gave the Bison their second powerplay of the period and they made it pay as Matt Reid scored on the backhand.

The final session was not even a minute old when a Carpenter shot came off Cruickshank's face cage. The visiting goalie needed a couple of minutes of attention before returning to the goal.

Both teams had chances with Bison Dave Geris hitting the inside of a post and Tait having a goal washed out because the net was off its moorings.

This meant, for the third time in their last four away games, the Bison went into overtime.

With 80 seconds left in the final session, Geris was sent to the sin bin for tripping and was joined by team mate Joe Ciccarello, who collected a 10-minute misconduct penalty for comments made to referee Simon Kirkham.

A minute later, Slater and Blaze Graham Schlender clashed for the second time in the contest, earning both a four-minute rest in the penalty box.

Despite having the extra man, the home side were unable to score the winner as the Bison - the top penalty killers in the league - made sure of that.

Scoring; Blaze: Ruggles, Tait 1+0, Chartrand, Poirier 0+1; Bison: Ciccarello, Moria 1+0, Filip, Roy, Sorensen, Takala 0+1. Shots on Goal: Lehman 32, Cruickshank 45. Penalties: Blaze 20, Bison 34.