Fife Flyers: NHL signings ready to lace up for debuts after visa hit delay
Fife Flyers’ NHL stars are set to hit the ice after paperwork delayed plans to play at the weekend.
Milan Lucic and David Booth were given a warm welcome as they took a bow after watching Saturday’s game against Glasgow Clan from the stands.
Appointments to finalise their visa were brought forward to the start of this week, and everything appears on course for them to travel and play against Belfast Giants on Friday with home debuts set for the return match at Fife Ice Arena on Sunday.
Booth and Lucic have also had the opportunity to train with their new team-mates as head coach Jamie Russell prepares to shuffle his lines to accommodate them, and the return of Justin Ducharme.
He is looking to pair Lucic with captain Garet Hunt, reuniting the duo who were team mates on the Vancouver Giants’ Memorial Cup winning team of 2007, and will decide who gets the nod to compete the line. Booth will team up with Josh Winquist, and Ducharme, but the coach now has options after an injury hit start to the campaign.
“It will shuffle the lines up,” he said. “We now have 12 forwards and that means good competition for spots, so we will see who has chemistry. It’s a bit like going back to training camp again to find the best combinations.”
Flyers need to emerge from the festive programme with a bunch of points to ignite the second half of the season. They are just one point behind ninth-placed Dundee Stars, but their Tayside rivals have six games in hand - and they are also in freefall with four hefty losses on the spin.
The teams meet on Tuesday, December 30 in Tayside with a Hogmanay return at Fife Ice Arena.
“Points against any team are important,” said Russell. “We are directly competing with team like Dundee and Coventry, and we have to jump over them.”
Defenceman Jeremy Masella is still on Injury Reserve (IR) and doesn’t come off that until December 28.
No date has been pencilled in yet for his return, but he hoped to make tentative steps back on the ice post-training this week.
Russell saw his team take one point from four in their Glasgow Clan double header, but felt it could have been more.
“I thought we could have deserved a better outcome from Saturday,” he said, referring to the 2-1 home defeat. “It was unfortunate to lose an early goal, but on the powerplay Josh hit a post, and we have a good shorthanded breakaway.
“Both goalies also played extremely well. Adding David and Milan to the line-up will certainly help.”