The effects of a sickness bug, which effectively locked down the dressing room in midweek, lingered as Fife Flyers struggled in a 6-2 loss to Manchester Storm last night.

Factor in a few absences through injury and it was a night when their play just lacked the fluency which has been the hallmark of some thrilling wins - a night when they created but chances but couldn’t execute.

Despite heavily outshooting Storm, they didn’t fully test netminder Drew Deridder who always looked comfortable dealing with the rubber that came his way.

Mike Petizian was one of the stand out skaters, and fully deserved his two goals which kept Flyers’ hopes alive, but the team will look back on several huge chances they passed on at key moments.

Cameron Hough fires a shot on goal in the game against Manchester Storm | Pic Jillian McFarlane

placeholder image — Cameron Hough fires a shot on goal in the game against Manchester Storm | Pic Jillian McFarlane

It was a night of playing catch up hockey after coughing the opening period 3-0 to a Storm side which struck early, and built a solid lead that prevailed throughout the 60 minutes.

They opened the scoring at 1:44 following a lengthy review by the referees before Drydn Dow's shot from the right point was given after studying a possible high stick en route to the net.

Brendan Clavelle pinged a shot off Flyers metalwork before Joe Nardi doubled their lead, and Brandon Cutler made it three.

Flyers got to work in the second, but there was a key moment after 22 minutes which saw Mika Partenan, unmarked, in front of net, fan on his shot, and Storm scuttle up the ice pad and net. A game which could have been 3-1 became 4-0 thanks to Tim McAuley.

Petizian grabbed a lifeline with his 25th minute powerplay strike, but Brady Gilmour’s fine finish quickly restored Storm’s four-goal advantage.

Before the halfway point Petizian converted his own rebound to make it 5-2, and for all Fife’s endeavours in the third they lacked a cutting edge in front of goal. They badly missed the authority of the absent Michael Drabek.

Netminder Blake Pietila headed to the bench no fewer than three times in the closing three minutes as Flyers tried to grab a late lifeline goal. They survived one scare before Kyle Maksimovich hit the empty net with just seconds remaining.

Tim Wallace, head coach, admitted his team made a slow start, and added: “We didn't have our legs, but got better as the game went on. We outshot them but made it pretty easy for their netminder. We need lot of guys to be a lot better.

“We’ve had some sickness bugs last week, and we could see that tonight. We can't get deflated.”