Viaplay Challenge Cup, quarter-final, first-leg: Dundee Stars 4, Fife Flyers 4
Injury-hit Fife Flyers, icing minus five players, earned a 4-4 draw in the first-leg of the Viaplay Challenge Cup at arch rivals Dundee Stars, but coach Todd Dutiaume saw his men give up a 4-2 lead in the final session.
Crocked Janne Kivilahti, Janne Laakkonen, Chris Lawrence (pictured) and Lucas Sandstrom plus James Spence sat out this one for Fife and they drafted in debutant forward Liam Blackburn, who flew in from Canada on Tuesday.
The 26-year-old got his career with the Kirkcaldy club off to a flying start with an assist after 2min 28sec when Christian Hausinger netted on the power-play and Blackburn scored after only 11 minutes with Hausinger supplying the final pass.
Dundee Stars hit back when Johan Eriksson netted after 12 minutes and Philippe Sanche levelled after 27 minutes but Hausinger popped in Flyers’ third ten minutes later.
And he grabbed his third nine minutes later unassisted but Sanche pulled one back on the power play five minutes after that and Colin Joe levelled for the second time with less than 11 minutes left.
Ian Parker through he had grabbed Dundee’s fifth to move the Tayside team ahead for the first time in the game with 56 minutes on the clock but it was disallowed after review by the match officials.
Flyers, who finished second in qualifying Group A, could rue their third-period slump when Stars claimed two unanswered goals when Stars travel to The Fife Ice Arena next Wednesday in the second-leg.
Todd Dutiaume’s men are anxious to progress having never made it to the final four, failing in the quarter-finals on five occasions.
Stars have also failed to reach the semi-finals so it is all to play for at Kirkcaldy and they outshot Fife 41 to 23 during last nights eight-goal game.
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