Fife Flyers’ one goal loss: ‘we didn’t get job done’ says coach
Fife Flyers passed up a golden opportunity to take a big step towards Challenge Cup qualification when they went down to a narrow 4-3 loss to Dundee Stars.
The defeat on home ice came after previously bossing a Stars side that has struggled to find its tempo this season.
Tim Wallace, head coach, admitted: “We didn’t bury our chances and I thought we lost a lot of the battles in the offensive zone which is not normal for us. We outshot and out-chanced them but didn’t get the job done.”
The impact on Flyers’ qualifying bid was minimised with Glasgow Clan going down to defeat her hands of Belfast Giants.
Stars opened the scoring as Craig Moore was in the right place to finish from close range after Dundee forced a turnover with nine minutes played.
Fife captain Garet Hunt levelled at 14:19, tipping Ben Solder's shot past Carl Stankowski, before Michal Drábek finished on the backhand following a well-worked move to give Flyers the lead with 100 seconds remaining in the period.
Dundee responded just 59 seconds into the second period when Travis Ewanyk followed up a rebound after winning the face-off to make it 2-2.
Stars then regained the lead through Matthew DeBoer, who capitalised on a defensive turnover by the Flyers. However, Evan Dougherty brought Fife level again with 58 seconds remaining in the period.
Just 25 seconds later, the goalscorer dropped the gloves with Duggie Lagrone both sitting five minutes for fighting.
Dundee went ahead for the fourth and final time at 44:21 as netminder Jordan McLaughlin was caught behind his net and chose not to play the puck to avoid a trapezoid violation.
Kris Inglis then fired a shot that struck the post before deflecting off McLaughlin and into the net.
Fife pushed for an equaliser in the closing stages and pulled McLaughlin for an extra skater. Zach Power had a chance to tie the game from the slot but fired wide, and Flyers were unable to create another clear opportunity before time expired.