It was a tough night on the road for the Invicta Dynamos as they lost 9-1 to Chelmsford Chieftains in the South East Trophy.

The Kent side had to battle the traffic on the M25 and Dartford Crossing, arriving at the Essex rink later than planned and without forward Callum Fowler.

Import Eriks Ozollapa tested out an injury, but couldn’t play and had to watch on along with Bailey Wootton.

Without three forwards, the Dynamos looked to be lacking firepower, but it was at the other end that they struggled too.

Head Coach, Kevin Parrish, elected to mix and match his normal lines, to give everyone a good amount of ice time, knowing very little rested on the fixture with the Trophy all but in the bag for the Essex side.

With that in mind, it came as no real surprise that the Dynamos found themselves three goals down in the opening five minutes.

It took only 54 seconds for former Dynamo import Juraj Huska to fire past Damien King. Less than two minutes later and Oleg Lesenko doubled the advantage for the home side.

At 4:36 Darren Brown found himself in front of goal with only King to beat and he made no mistake.

Shell shocked from conceding so many, so early, the Dynamos shook themselves down and started to battle.

Twice King denied Danny Hammond, whilst at the other end both Arran Strawson and Ondrej Zosiak tried their luck from distance to no avail.

A penalty against Damien Welch with little over two minutes to go until the end of the period was punished as the home side made full use of the numerical advantage with Lesenko grabbing his second of the night.

The Dynamos came out in the second period looking to challenge and for large parts looked the better side and were duly rewarded in the 30th minute when Strawson fired home from just inside the blue line.

Chelmsford were to go up another gear and former Dynamo, Charlie Phillips, was to get himself on the scoresheet in the 35th minute.

At 5-1 going into the final period, the Dynamos gave King little over four more minutes in goal before giving Steve Nightingale a run out.

He was busy from the off and he conceded four minutes after coming onto the ice, this time Lukas Zatopek thundering home from the blue line.

Nightingale was on hand to deny Chelmsford time and time again, but with Zatopek off the ice for holding, the home side scored a short handed goal as Ayling collected the puck from the air and Hammond followed up to score.

It was to be 8-1 in the 55th minute, Huska blasting past his former team-mate, with the pair involved again in the 59th minute, Nightingale again beaten by the former Dynamo.

At 9-1 the scoreline looks harsh on a Dynamos side down on their options, whilst Chelmsford went all out to win the game and claim the Trophy.

Knocks to Jack Lee and Joshua Condren will be a slight cause for concern to a Dynamos side that will need to dust off this defeat quickly as they are back in league action on Saturday evening with Oxford City Stars coming to Gillingham.