Sunday’s 7-2 home win over Scottish rivals Glasgow Clan in the Challenge Cup was, according to Jeff Hutchins, a continuation of Saturday when Fife Flyers won 3-1 at big-budget Nottingham Panthers in the Premier Sports Elite League.
The club’s associate coach, who lives in the Lothians, said the squad went into Nottingham and, from the opening face-off, showed that they could compete.
And he added: “For 120 minutes at the weekend I thought we were fantastic.”
The former Great Britain international felt that Fife controlled zone time early on in the Midlands which created momentum.
That continued into Sunday at The Fife Ice Arena against Glasgow and Hutchins (pictured behind head coach Todd Dutiaume) said he was pleased with the reaction of home fans to a team which was working hard.
He revealed that the coaching staff use the word re-set a lot in team talks, and the squad were warned that there could be a push-back from wounded Clan after Flyers went 4-0 ahead after 14min 23sec of the first period at Kirkcaldy, .
He added: “We handled it well and we came out with the same intensity (for the second period) and we widened the gap further.”
In fact, Jonas Emmerdahl fired the fifth 1min 16sec into the middle session and Zach Phillip’s power play strike in the 34th minute made it 6-0.
Nolan LaPorte opened Clan’s account with 54 seconds of the middle period left and the Lothians-based coach admitted to being a “little disappointed” to have given up a power play goal, Gary Hayden scoring for the visitors after 51min 17sec.
However, he was pleased that his defencemen are scoring with blue-liner Brayden Sherbinin claiming a glory double to earn Man of the Match accolade.
Hutchins added: “I thought the defence did a really good job, even when we were short, and they are really mobile, they can skate.”
Overall, he added: “I can’t fault the effort (from the team) and, hopefully, this is the turn around for us going forward.”
It’s Dundee Stars who visit on Saturday (19.15) and Jeff Mason’s men have still to record a win in five starts in the Elite League.
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