Fife Flyers: Home loss and shut out on road in frustrating weekend

A 4-2 loss on home ice to Dundee Stars was followed by a 6-0 whitewash at the hands of Sheffield Steelers.

The club now has to regain the ground lost this coming weekend when it has a home double header against Coventry Blaze and Cardiff Devils.

Flyers’ work ethic was certainly not in question in the defeat to Stars - but these are the games they have find ways of winning in order to stick around that mid-table chasing pack.

Result aside, there was much to commend from an entertaining game played at speed and in a noisy rink – but this is a results-based business at the end of the day.

Flyers went at them from the puck drop,and created numerous chances which, perhaps on another night could have delivered a different outcome. The line of Kivilahti-Johansson-Phillips certainly caused endless problems in that opening surge.

And in Kivilahti they had a stand-out workhorse of a player who netted twice, chased every puck into the corner and was a deserved ‘MoM’ winner. He’d have happily traded that for the two points, though.

The teams were level after the opening 20 minutes at Fife Ice Arena thanks to a pair of goals scored just 51 seconds apart Romans Semjonovs netted his fourth point in two nights with the opener for the Stars at 17:08, only for Kivilahti's sixth goal of the season to level things up at 17:59.

Philippe Sanche scored a penalty shot 23 seconds into period two to put the visitors back ahead, but Flyers finally tied this game - it felt a long time coming, and it was entirely down to Kivilhati’s perseverance as grabbed the puck, got knocked down on one knee, got up and still found the net.

The next goal was always key to the outcome, and it came with 3:20 remaining when the impressive Sanche spotted a gap, and slotted home with a fine shot.

Flyers pulled Shane Owen after a time out in the last minute, but in a mighty scramble for control of the puck inside Stars’ zone, Elijah Barriga got his stick to it and drilled a long-range shot into the empty net.

Jeff Hutchins, associate coach, described the night as “frustrating” - a feeling shared by many in the stands - and added: “The effort level was there all night long, and we pushed back - maybe pushed too much at times and were open to the counter attack.”

Sunday saw Fife head to Sheffield where they dropped the opening period 2-0.

A goal-less middle stanza was followed by a 4-0 third period which saw Steelers ease to a win which took them to the top of the Elite League.