Fife Flyers’ huge road win at Guildford seals massive four-point weekend

Tom Coolen’s team scored a superb come from behind victory at The Spectrum, wiping out a 2-0 first period deficit to move up to eighth place, one point ahead of faltering Glasgow Clan, and just one behind Manchester Storm.

And while both of their rivals have games in hand, Fife have the points in the bag and growing momentum as the season heads into its closing stages. Storm and Clan both suffered blank weekends.

Coolen was delighted with the win, stating: “I thought we made a few mistakes and turnovers in the first period, and it cost us. We cut down on the turnovers in the second and third and had some timely goals to tie the game. Our special teams came up big tonight and Shane Owen made some big saves in the last minute.”

Flames capitalised on Flyers’ bus legs with opening period goals from Matt Tugnutt from close range, possibly with the help of the crossbar, to open the scoring at 7:39. And then Matt Alvaro danced through the Flyers defence and beat Owen on his low blocker side to double the lead with 16:08 played.

Brady Pouteau was unhappy to be called for Interference at 21:59, but was less bothered about the call when he jumped out of the penalty box to set up Max Humitz on an odd-man rush. Eamon McAdam saved the initial shot, but Lucas Chiodo followed up to shoot into the empty net. Just over ten minutes later, fJohan Eriksson popped up to beat McAdam and tie the game.

Flyers then grabbed the go-ahead goal - which proved to be the winner. On a Steven McParland Holding minor, Max Humitz saw his shot deflected and squeezed through McAdam to put them ahead at 44:25

Late in the final period, Owen made two excellent, sprawling saves to keep Flyers ahead. Ryan Tait had a golden chance to tie the game after Flames pulled their netminder, but he shot wide while in space in the slot. Coach Paul Dixon called a time out with 29 seconds to play but to no avail, as Owen backstopped his team to victory with 39 saves in the game.