Fife Flyers: short-benched team loses out to late goals at Guildford

A short-benched team made the journey south, and were very much in this tight game until the final stages when their legs tired, and the hosts netted twice before sealing the deal with an empty net goal.

Flyers were minus forwards Johnny Curran and Martin Latal, and defenceman Brodie Kay - while Fynn Page did not travel, and the back-up slot went again to Cameron Kenny after Brython Preece was released at the end of last week. Flyers iced just 14 skaters as coach Tom Coolen juggled his limited resources - the team sheet showed no British players other than the back-up goalie – to ice three lines on the back of a long road trip.

Three goals in the third period helped Flames to a win in their opening league fixture. They thought they’d taken the lead after five minutes, but the goal was wiped out after a review for goaltender interference.

Flames went ahead with a Charlie Dodero slap shot from turned home on the rebound by Ryan Tait at 16:58. Fife tied the game at 29:17 when Flames failed to clear their zone, Lucas Chiodo won the puck and set up Michael Cichy for a back-post tap-in. The goal sparked Flyers into life, so much so that Dixon needed to call a timeout some three minutes later to steady his team.

All tied going into period three, it was two goals in five minutes that turned things back in Flames favour. Kyle Locke's throw towards the net seemed to be drifting some way wide until Jake Coughler got his stick on the end of it to put the puck past Shane Owen at 43:54. After killing off a penalty, Flames then moved 3-1 ahead thanks to new signing Jack Jacome. Coolen gambled on pulling Owen with 2:26 to play, but just 11 seconds later Ethan Stang hit the empty net.

Coolen said: “For two and a half periods it was a good hockey game - a close game. We don’t have anything to hang our heads about. We took some bad penalties and didn’t capitalise on our powerplay opportunities, but, five on five, we did a good job.”