Fife Flyers:  Steelers ‘outskilled, outplayed us & deserved to win’ – Tom Coolen

“When you deep dive on the numbers, we’ve given up 15 five-on-five goals against Fife which is more than any other team in the league, he told the Yorkshire Post. “And 10 of those 15 goals came off a line rush, so we’ve got an idea as to what we need to do to limit them in their opportunities.”

And he then did just that as Steelers skated to a solid 9-4 lead ahead od Sunday’s return leg at Fife Ice Arena.

Fox’s team have swept all before them this season, securing the league title and the Challenge Cup - and it will take a comeback of epic proportions from Flyers to deny them a tile at a Grand Slam at the finals weekend in Nottingham.

Tom Coolen knew finishing eighth in the standings meant a head to head with Steelers - arguably the toughest of the quarter-finals. He could only look back at last weekend’s final game loss to Dundee Stars which cost them a match-up with either Belfast Giants or Cardiff Devils.

Flyers departed the ice rink on Thursday to ensure they were fully prepared for Friday’s tie, and they will have a rest day before Sunday’s return which will be their last game on home ice this season.

Coolen said: “The first period went exactly how we like it to go at 1-1, but we didn’t play well enough defensively, we turned the puck over too many times and they swarmed us with their depth. They were relentless. They didn’t back off.

“They outskilled us and outplayed us, and deserved to win. ”We scored four goals. Do that and you normally give yourselves a chance to win, but we gave up too many odd man rushes and turn overs; all the things you talk about and hammer home all year long. These things that make a difference on a positive-negative side. We had too many on the negative side tonight.”

Sunday’s farewell game on home ice has a 5:15pm face-off and will - at the very least - give fans a chance to see their team in action one last time after none were able to travel to Friday’s game after no ticket allocation was offered when the game was switched to the much smaller Ice Sheffield rink and was played without an away support present, which sat uneasily with many.