Edinburgh Capitals 3-6 Fife Flyers – Capitals suffer sixth straight defeat

Misfiring Edinburgh Capitals yesterday slipped to their sixth straight defeat when they lost 6-3 to arch rivals Fife Flyers at Murrayfield writes Nigel Duncan.

Carlo Finucci and Ryan Dingle both hit doubles to cheer visiting fans in the bumper 2,000 holiday crowd.

Rock-bottom Capitals were forced to ice their under-20 squad netminder Jordan McLaughlin who was making his debut for the senior team after No 1 Ravi’s Fullerton pulled out with flu.

The youngster was picking the puck out of the net after a six minutes when Carlo Finucci scored, and the same player made it 2-0 after a breakaway but injury-hit Capitals struck back.

Ian Schultz prodded home four minutes later after highly-rated Fife netminder Shane Owen failed to hold a Jacob Johnston shot.

Capitals then laid siege on the Fife net until the first break but could not break though.

They were caught cold after 23 seconds of the middle session when Ryan Dingle netted after Capitals defence was pretty under real pressure.

Matt Tipoff pulled one back midway through the period following a slick build-up involving outstanding Russian Pavel Vorobyev.

Experienced former Braehead Clan star Brendan Brooks claimed Fife’s fourth short-handed and Justin Fox netted No 5 also short-handed after 52 minutes.

Johnston replied for Capitals with a rocket shot 51 seconds later for 5-3 and Dingle scored his second after 54 minutes after a great Fife move in neutral ice.