Fife Flyers' near 1000-mile road trip secures big win over Guildford Flames
and live on Freeview channel 276
The club made the long trek to Guildford on Saturday while their Irish opponents spent the weekend in Dundee and enjoyed a brief 30-mile trip to the Lang Toun arena.
Despite the farcical scheduling, Flyers will head home in fine spirits after an excellent 5-1 win over Guildford Flames.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdIt was their third victory in a row - their first since September 2019 - and it came as Manchester, Glasgow and Dundee all lost, to narrow the gap in the race for one of the play-off spots.
The game marked the debut of new import defenceman Kyle Thacker, who joined the club just one week after forward Chris Lawrence arrived - and those fresh faces appear to have given the team a new energy after the toughest of losing streaks at the start of 2022.
Todd Dutiaume, head coach, was delighted with the win.
He said: “We knew it was going to be difficult after a long bus trip.“I don’t think we had a good start - we were quite pedestrian in the first period, but we came out with the lead and that bolstered our confidence and we settled into the game.”
Although the Flames had the better of the chances in the opening period, it was Flyers who led after 20 minutes thanks to a Michael McNicholas goal after seven minutes.
Advertisement
Hide AdAdvertisement
Hide AdBari McKenzie then capitalised on a badly-timed Flames line change to slot past Kevin Lindskoug 6:42 into period two.
The English side opened their account through Brett Ferguson only to see Fife restore their two goal lead with a power play from Jacob Benson at 32:19.
Tommi Jokinen then netted a penalty shot with 81 seconds left in the middle frame.
Flyers sealed the win with a fifth counter from Carson Stadnyk late in period three before Flames’ player Kyle Locke was ejected for a cross-check inside the final minute.
The Kirkcaldy club take on Giants this evening.
The game has a 6:00pm face off