Fife Flyers’ last gasp strike – ‘we’re not a fun team to play against’ says match winner

They scored a fine 2-1 victory at Manchester Storm, with Joey Pierce delivering the winner with just seconds remaining in sudden death overtime.

The defenceman capitalised when Storm lost track of the puck in Fife’s zone, and raced down the ice pad. His first shot was saved but the rebound landed nicely, and he caught the puck, dropped it back on to the ice and executed a fine wraparound goal.

A closely contested opening period saw the deadlock broken at 14:51 by an excellent breakaway goal from Manchester's Kyle Maksimovich, who moved the puck onto his backhand before tucking it into the net.

Flyers almost responded with a similar move at the other end, but netminder Drew DeRidder made the save to deny them their best chance of the opening period.

The visitors came out stronger in the second period and drew level at 23:40. Ben Solder moved the puck across to Mike Petizian, who controlled it before releasing a quick wrist shot past DeRidder before the Storm netminder could get square to the shooter.

Neither side could find a breakthrough for the remainder of the middle period, leaving the game tied at 1-1 heading into the third.

Storm had a golden chance to win the game when Mika Partanen was called for hooking with 1:41 remaining in regulation time. They called a time out, but could not find a way past netminder Blake Pietila.

“"That was a huge penalty kill there at the end, starting from our goalie," said Pierce. "Blake played awesome all night, especially on the kill."

There were barely 30 seconds remaining in overtime when Pierce struck with the golden goal.

"I saw a lucky bounce back to my glove in the air at the end, and I was able to put it in,” he said.

The game marked the return from injury of defenceman Joona Vainio, while captain Garet Hunt sat this one out.

Pierce said: “We had some chances where we could have just thrown pucks to the net when there was traffic there, and that always creates chaos and sometimes goals. That was something we talked about early on, just getting more pucks to the net when the bodies were there.

"It was a hard-fought game. It stayed tight the whole time," Pierce reflected. "They had some good shifts where they put a lot of pressure on us, and we felt like we did the same to them.

The win continued Fife's run of success in close games.

"From day one, we felt like we were a really close group, and it's just a fun locker room of good people and hard workers," said Pierce. "We're going to win games using our togetherness and our grit. It's not always going to be pretty for us, but we're able to stick with games.

"We've had big comebacks in games, and we're not a fun team to play against. That's how we're going to have success."