Coach Michal Dobron takes his Edinburgh Capitals squad to Fife Flyers on Boxing Day (face-off 6pm) after a roller-coaster display at high-flying Belfast Giants on Thursday.
The Capital combine lost 9-6 at Belfast Giants but shocked home fans by winning the final session 5-1.
James Desmarais and Chris Higgins handed Giants a 2-0 first-period lead and Blair Riley and Alex Foster made it 4-0 after 22 minutes.
Then, Taylor MacDougall netted Capitals’ opener two minutes later only for Belfast to claim four unanswered goals from Desmarais, Steve Saviano, Alex Foster and Riley.
But the visitors refused to give in and Yevgeni Fyodorov scored their second after 42 minutes.
No 3 arrived three minutes later from Pavel Vorobyev and Fyodorov scored their fourth three minutes after that.
Matt Towe counted for Giants two minutes later but Jared Staal and Michael D’Orazio completed the scoring with two goals inside the final three minutes.
Coach Dobron was unhappy with some of his men and Capitals go into the game (face-off 6pm) on the back of three straight defeats.
Fife have lost their last five games and the fixture means that the two teams with the worst recent records are going head-to-head.
Fife and Edinburgh desperately need a lift. Capitals prop up the ten-strong league with 17 points from 22 games and Fife are seventh with 21 points from 23 starts.
The top three – Cardiff Devils (39 points), Belfast (35 points) and Sheffield Steelers (31 points) – are pulling away from the rest but Capitals can’t allow a bigger gap to develop at the bottom as second-bottom Dundee Stars have 20 points from 24 games and Coventry Blaze are also on 20 points but from 25 starts.
Fife are next and above them are Manchester Storm with 23 points from the same number of games, Braehead Clan with 24 points from 25 starts and Nottingham Panthers with 25 points from 23 outings.
Photo courtesy of Ian Coyle
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