Flyers dish out some Capitals punishment in eight-goal rout

Saturday saw Flyers Forth rivals Edinburgh Capitals visit FIA for the last time this season and from the outside it looked like a Capitals side in turmoil.

Caps had lost some key players since their last visit, most notably top scorer Ryan Hayes, and had replaced then with a number of players on try out contracts but Capitals had found themselves in similar situations in the past and had got wind in adverse situations so Flyers knew they had to approach the game in the right manner and not take the two points for granted.

Flyers started positively on the front foot and took the game to Capitals and had the visitors pinned back in their zone for long spells but found them in a resilient mood backed by Chubak who looked as if he was going to have one of those nights and stop everything that he saw.

The home side’s perserverance paid off though with the first powerplay opportunity of the night when a Kyle Haines wrist shot got past Chubak for the only marker of the first 20, a period that saw Flyers dominate as the 19-2 shots on goal in their favour testified.

Second period began the same as the first ended with the Flyers on the front foot and they increased the lead to 2-0 with a really nice goal from Stockton at 21.54.

Capitals began to lose some composure and discipline at this stage as first Chubak went for slashing, which Flyers took advantage of to make it 3-0 when a Haines one timer was redirected by Dorr at 23.37, and then Kolesnikovs took a 10 minute misconduct for mouthing off at ref Cowan for not awarding a penalty to Flyers for what the defenceman believed was a high stick.

Capitals though were not here to lie down and they created some nice chances when they had their best spell of the game in the middle of the second but found Brown in good form.

Flyers blew the game wide open in the latter stages of the period though as first Fox scored from close in at 36.09 and then eight seconds later Cullen fired a bullet of a shot past Chubak on the short side for 5-0.

The hosts completed the period scoring with a lovely tic-tac-toe passing move from the third line which saw Stewart score with just five seconds left on the clock to make it 6-0 and effectively end the game.

Capitals replaced Chubak with Forshall for the start of the third and Flyers coach Dutiaume took the opportunity to use all of his bench and did so in all situations.

Players not used to getting ice time found themselves with penalty kill and powerplay opportunities as key players were rested for the more challenging game in Braehead the next night.

Even though Flyers had taken their foot of the pedal a little they still created chances and made it 7-0 when Sacchetti lifted the puck over Forshall from close range.

Both teams were more or less seeing the game out now and Capitals broke Brown’s shut out at 50.47 when a Plews shot was nicely deflected past the Flyers netminder by Dickin.

At this stage most people were thinking that Douglas would replace Brown and the Flyers number one kept looking to the bench for confirmation of this and it eventually came with 4.39 left of the game.

Flyers finished the scoring when Dorr got his second of the night with a backhand shot at 58.17 for a comfortable 8-1 victory and keeps their faint hopes of a conference championship alive although Capitals kept going and new import Milan had a good game and Forshall had some nice saves in the third.

These sort of games are no win games and have to be approached in a thoroughly professional way and that is exactly what the Flyers did.

They were also able to give ice time to everybody and rest players which is a huge benefit and there were good performances from Paquet, Dorr, Dingle, Cullen, Caig and Stockton.