Blaze bag important road win

Photo: Flyers Images

Coventry Blaze picked up an important road win against Fife on Sunday night, surviving a late Flyers push to skate out of Kirkcaldy with a 3-2 win.

On the day Finland won their first ever Winter Olympic gold medal in ice hockey, it was an excellent night for the Blaze's two Finns as well. Janne Kivilahti opened the scoring at 5:09, hanging back as the Blaze entered the zone and finishing with a low wrist shot off Dane Gibson's pass for the only goal in the first period.

Michael McNicholas slapped home from the high slot to tie the game at 32:04, but the Blaze were back ahead before period two was out when Ross Venus deflected Mitch Cook's pas in front past Shane Owen at 34:51.

After the Flyers had some good opportunities to try and get back on level terms at the start of period three, a speculative Janne Laakkonen shot beat Owen high to put the Blaze 3-1 ahead with just over 15 minutes to go. 

Local boy Scott Jamieson scored his first goal for the Flyers at 51:59 when he went to the good area in front and slotted past CJ Motte, his goal if not the celebration that followed energising the home crowd. Motte pulled off an excellent sliding save soon after to keep his side ahead.

That was, however, to be the last of the scoring. The Flyers got a late powerplay opportunity to try and tie the game, but despite pulling Owen they failed to generate any clear-cut chances on the man advantage and the Blaze managed out the final few seconds to record the win.