Nottingham Panthers, the Elite League leaders, recovered from their 3-2 overtime defeat at Dundee Stars, to beat bottom club Fife Flyers 4-1 at The Fife Ice Arena.
Christian Purboo was beaten after 6min 27sec by Matt Alfaro. It became 2-0 with 36min 51sec on the clock when Tim Doherty netted and the visitors increased their advantage to 3-0 after 43min 46sec.
Fife dug in and Panthers’ Matt Spencer was called for delaying the game. Flyers capitalised and Ethan Somoza scored on the power play after being set up by Anthony Karlsson and Ian Scheid sparking thoughts of a fightback.
Flyers’ coach Jamie Russell called a time-out with less than two minutes remaining. Docherty then hit is second and Nottingham’s third after 59min 33sec on an empty net after Purboo had been withdrawn to give Fife six skaters.
Meanwhile, Logan Neilson scored on his debut for Fife Flyers, but the Kingdom-based club lost 5-2 at Guildford Flames after being outshot 49-33.
The scoreline was blank after the opening session in The Spectrum and Fife were only 3-2 behind after the middle period but a 2-0 third period scoreline closed the door on the Flyers.
It took Flames 27 minutes to find a way past Fife netminder Shane Owen and open the scoring through Jake Coughler and they moved 2-0 ahead only 16 seconds later when Matt Alvaro counted.
A power play strike from Cole Ully made it 3-0 after 31 minutes with Mason Alderson in the penalty box for slashing, but Josh Winquist was set up by Ethan Somoza and Simon Despres for Fife’s opener after 31min 33sec.
The goal was quickly added to as Neilson latched onto the puck supplied by Winquist on 32min 32sec for a power play goal to make the scoreline 3-2. Alvaro was in the penalty box at the time for high sticking.
Guildford then moved 4-2 ahead following a power play strike from Mathieu Gosselin with Somoza in the sin bin for hooking.
And it became 5-2 with less than four minutes remaining when Gosselin counted. Overall, the home side were too hot for Flyers, but Paul Dixon, Flames’ coach, conceded it was a really tough game for his men.
He added: “To be fair, in the first period, they were the better team, they were really good. You have to stay with it and we put ourselves in a good position at 3-0 and then there were two quick goals.
“The third period was our best and we came away with a win. We weren’t at our finest, but you have to give Fife a lot of credit. The changes they have made and the players they have brought in, that is a very strong team now. Fife are starting to go in the right direction.”
Jamie Russell, Fife’s head coach (pictured), said: “I thought we had a great first period, and as the game progressed we did not make a lot of intelligent decisions, we have got some guys who are back in the line-up which is great to see but they have not had a lot of ice time in the last month.”
Alderson has not played for the last month, said the coach. Neilson has not been on the ice for the past month, he added and Vlastimil Dostalek been out for three weeks and Russell said: “I thought the decision making for the whole group could have been much better.”
BODY ON THE LINE: Action from Flyers v Panthers courtesy of the Elite League and all taken by Jillian McFarlane
