Sympathy in stands but mistakes on ice cost Fife Flyers in defeat at Sheffield

Wednesday night saw Flyers go down 8-1 at Sheffield Steelers as, once again, mistakes were punished ruthlessly, and a short benched team could only give all it had against a side chasing a league title. There was applause around the arena as Fife took their bow perhaps for the final time in Sheffield as they now head closer to a summer shrouded in uncertainty.

Outshot 61-19, Flyers held Steelers to just one goal in the opening period - pretty decent road hockey - but fell out of the game in the second as the hosts netted three without reply.

Mark Simpson's drive to the net set up Mikko Juusola at Shane Owen's far post for the tap-in to open the scoring. Mitchell Balmas cut in from the wing and got Owen to bite for Steelers' second goal, but it was scored by Sam Tremblay after the shot was blocked en route to the empty net and fell kindly for a simple finish.

Patrick Watling's neat dangle into the slot set himself up to make it 3-0 at 32:04, with Simpson scoring some two minutes later to put the home side in total control.

Juusola made it 5-0 3:45 into the third period as the visitors' bench of 13 skaters began to get tired. Flyers broke netminder Matt Greenfield's shutout just shy of the 49-minute mark through Kieran Craig, but Daniel Leavens struck at 51:11 to put the home side back five ahead. Curtis Warburton entered the home side's net for the remaining 7:49, and saw two goals go in at the other end.

Robert Dowd set a new Steelers all-time goal-scoring record with his 357th goal in orange to make it 7-1 with 56:27 played, while Marc-Olivier Vallerand finished off the scoring with 31 seconds to play.

Johnny Curran, Flyers’ interim coach, said”I cannot fault the effort. We are short of bodies but mistakes we are making are not because of that - our decision making at times is hurting us.”