Late goals sink Fife Flyers despite huge effort against Cardiff Devils

Successes in Wales have been few and far between across the seasons, and they were up against a host side which stretched its winning streak to ten games.

Devils piled pressure on Dominik Salama's net in the early stages and were rewarded with the opening goal inside five minutes - Jamie Arniel was given too much time and space in the offensive zone, and he picked his spot to beat the Finn with 4:05 played.

Flyers came out on top in period two, despite being outshot 15-11 over the middle 20 minutes. After the visitors wasted a 5-on-3 advantage, Lucas Chiodo levelled the game after 30 minutes before the Flyers' forward lunged in at the back post to beat Tyler Wall high. Just 97 seconds later, Colin Shirley needed to stretch to reach Teemu Pulkkinen's pass into the slot but did so before firing past Wall.

Cardiff turned the game in less than three minutes late on in the third. Justin Crandall levelled with a bullet of a one-timer at 53:40. Cody Donaghey then let fly from the point that beat Salama through a screen with 3:46 to play - Tom Coolen thought about challenging the goal, but ultimately opted not to.

Flyers went with six skaters for the final 94 seconds, and a late pad stop by Wall kept them for earning themselves a late point.

With Manchester winning 5-2 against Belfast Giants, and Glasgow Clan grabbing a point in their 4-03 OT loss at Coventry Blaze, it meant Fife moved back into ninth slot - level on points with their west coast rivals. Storm are three ahead.

Coolen admitted a point would have been a welcome return for their efforts, adding: “We played hard. This is not an easy trip, but we had a good first period and we answered back in the second. It was a big effort to give up two late ones - it would have been nice to get something, but I can’t fault our guys’ effort.”