Fife Flyers: three games in three nights test in push for play-off points

The club kicks-off with a home game against Manchester Storm on Friday night - their second meeting within a week - before road trips to Glasgow Clan on Saturday and Belfast Giants on Sunday.

While visits across the Irish Sea have delivered very few points, the first two games are key to Flyers’ play-off hopes.

They sit in ninth spot, one off a play-off berth and are in the middle of a race with Storm, Clan and Stars to secure a place in the post-season competition.

Flyers are four points ahead of tenth placed Stars who have a game in hand, and they trail Clan by just one point with three games in hand - so a win at Braehead will shake up the standings.

Storm are four head in seventh with games in hand, but are still very much part of the chasing pack - and they return to Fife Ice Arena just days after losing to Flyers in a penalty shoot.

The Kirkcaldy side will go into the weekend action without key forward Mikael Johansson who is out injured, but in confident mood of maintaining the momentum they found in January.

Todd Dutiaume, head coach, said: “We got healthy and we started winning. It was our most productive month in terms of points - three wins in a week, including the Challenge Cup tie, was good to see.”

Sunday’s win over Storm came on the back of a long overnight journey back from Cardiff - the team arrived home at 7:00am - where they went down 7-1.

“Early penalties spotted them a 2-0 lead, and heads went down,” said Dutiaume. To come all the way back and play and win against Manchester was a good response. We need points this weekend.”

Flyers win was sealed with a superb penalty shot from Brayden Sherbinin as the defencemen stepped up.

Dutiaume explained: “We’d talked to Sherbs about shooting - her took them in his younger days and felt confident, but we didn’t want to put the pressure on him going last, so he went fourth. We have him a nod on the bench and he said ‘let’s go.’

“It was good to know we have another guy in the line-up we can turn to in a shoot-out.”