Fife Flyers: the ‘emotional fragility’ at heart of team in face of adversity

A season which started out with a renewed sense of optimism has failed to ignite, and the club goes into the last league weekend knowing they must win both games, and still hope that Glasgow Clan lose in regulation time, to extend their season and be part of the championship quarter-finals.

A place in the play-offs was one of two non-negotiable goals at the start of the season, but it hangs by a thread as the fans head rinkside for what could be the last home game of the season.

And if they do make it, they will then go head to head with the league champs.

Dutiaume said: Since March we have been emotionally fragile when things are going wrong or bad calls happen.

“We’re not dealing with adversity very well right now as a group. There were a lot of positives in January and February and everyone was upbeat. The cup final defeat knocked our confidence.”

That allied to a lack of firepower has seen Fife win just one of their last 13 games.

To shake things up, Dutiaume went with nine forwards against Cardiff Devils, only to see the plan blown out the water as Lucas Sandstrom was out of the game after a late check in the opening minutes, and them Kamerin Nault was hit by a slapshot and missed a number of shifts.

Looking back over recent weeks, the coach added: “We lost to Glasgow, came back and got a point from Cardiff.

"We then started fantastically well to beat Nottingham, then at Coventry it was 0-0 for 30 minutes and they grabbed a powerplay that shouldn’t have been, and we crumbled.

“At Manchester we were in charge of the game, ran into penalties and crumbled, and then came back here and capitulated to Glasgow. It has been frustrating.”

> Netminder Shane Owen has won the 2022-23 Mirror of Merit award - Flyers’ traditional player of the year honour - for a fourth time to equal the record number of wins set by Les Lovell.