Fife Flyers’ losing streak stretches to five games with shut-out in Altrincham

With players out injured, Fife were back down to the bones again for Saturday’s trip to Manchester, where they were shut out 4-0, and outshot more than two to one on a tight ice pad. It was their second blank scoreline in Altrincham, and the fans are certainly looking for the action that sparks a change of fortunes as quickly as possible, but with just two import signings left to make, Tom Coolen’s hand is pretty limited.

Fans want to see someone to command the blue line, and someone to light a spark under his goalscorers who have fallen into a deep slumber. While they may be creating chances, the end product is worryingly thin - only one goal from a forward in the last four league outings isn’t anywhere near the threshold needed to spark a new winning run.

Flyers iced on Saturday with just four defencemen - Teemu Pulkinnen stepped back to the blue line to help shore up the gaps - and were under the cosh with Storm hammering over 50 shots on netminder Shane Owen in just two periods. Players had to soak up more ice time than they were accustomed to, and by the time they found smoke momentum in the third the game was over. They had chances on the powerplay but were unable to capitalise, and Storm carved out a 3-0 lead by the second buzzer. Cam Critchlow got the opener 14:19, turning home a pass from Dallas Ehrhardt.

The second period saw Storm put more daylight between the teams as Will Merchant got a tip on to a shot from Ehrhardt to beat Owen in the 29th minute, and then Critchlow bagged a second with a rebound off a show from Martan Mitchell. Sam Tremblay saw a third period shot come off Owen’s post before Tyler Hinam wrapped a solid win with number four six minutes from time.

Head coach Tom Coolen now has to get his side ready for a tough home game against league leaders Sheffield Steelers tonight - and find a way of securing points to avoid a second successive blank weekend.

He admitted: “Manchester deserved to win. They came out hard, played hard for 60 minutes. We were a little thin on the back end with two defencemen out and it was not easy, Guys who don’t normally play a lot of minutes did a lot more than they are used to, and that wore us down.”