Storm comfortable winners over Clan

Photo: Mark Ferris

Manchester Storm got an important win on Friday night, beating Glasgow Clan 4-1 in front of a crowd of 2,019 fans at the Storm Shelter.

After a scoreless opening 20 minutes, Storm hit two in each of the following periods to take an important two points in the race for the playoffs.

Manchester went ahead 3:06 into period two. A loose puck around Landon Bow has several players try to fire it home, but as Bow couldn't get the puck covered it eventually broke to Ryan Hughes to lift into the roof of the net. 25 seconds later, Craig Martin cut in from the wing and beat Bow blocker side to double Storm's lead.

Mitchell Heard pulled one back for Clan when he reacted fastest to a rebound off Evan Weninger from a Darien Kielb shot. Clan thought they might have tied the game late in the second, but a puck was ruled not to have crossed the goal line with 24 seconds remaining.

With just over nine minutes to play in the final period, Weninger made an excellent save across his crease to deny Liam Finlay a tap-in at the far post and keep Storm ahead. A beautiful dangle from Hughes at 52:48 ended with him back-handing the puck over Bow's glove hand to put Storm 3-1 up, Alexis D'Aoust proving an excellent distraction in front of the net on the play.  

Captain Cam Critchlow hit the empty net from the red line with 2:49 to play to make it 4-1, just as Bow had left the net with Clan needing two goals in the final stages.