Blaze edge past battling Flyers

Photo: Flyers Images

Coventry Blaze came out of Fife with two points, but were made to work very hard for it by a battling Flyers in a 3-1 game. 

"We'll take it, a win is a win!" said Blaze goalie Mat Robson after the game, having made 34 saves for his team. "It's never easy coming up here to Scotland, and Fife are a very different team now to what we saw before Christmas. They have a lot of their guys back now, their goalie played really well, and it was a good, hard-fought game."

David Clements set up Brandon Alderson for an excellent one-timer from the point at 4:06 to open the scoring as the Blaze started strong. Janis Voris was having a stellar game in net and did well to stop Jacob Stridsberg at the back post after he joined the rush and was set up by Jack Hopkins. Michael Regush's innocent-looking shot snuck through the Latvian goalie at 12:17 although may have been deflected off a player in front on the way.

Having kept the Flyers just two behind, Voris was then instrumental in them halving the deficit. An excellent head’s up pass was taken by Lucas Chiodo on the opposite blue line, and he laid the puck off to Kieran Craig to score at 27:11 and bring the Flyers back into things.

The Flyers chased the game in period three and created some good chances but without really working Mat Robson into any desperate saves. A late tripping minor on Luciani gave the Flyers an excellent chance to find a tying goal, but to no avail. With 63 seconds left, Luciani slotted into the empty net to end the game but there were more sign of progress for Johnny Curran's Flyers team.

"It's a team game, the guys played well in front of me but when we had a couple of little breakdowns, that's what I'm there for!" concluded Robson.