Fife Flyers are on the road this weekend. They first check-in second-placed, Cardiff Devils, on Saturday and on Sunday travel to Coventry Blaze, the club occupying the eighth and final play-off position.
The Kirkcaldy club’s record in The Principality is not promising. They have met on 34 occasions, winning five of the games, shipping 156 goals and scoring 64. Not great numbers and that includes an 8-2 home defeat on November 16.
They have also been shutout on their last two meetings on Devils ice, their last visit on Sunday, November 23, resulting in a 5-0 reverse, but on the positive side, Fife won 3-2 after overtime when the clubs met at The Fife Ice Arena on November 30.
The men from the Principality sit second-top of the ten-strong Elite League with 46 points from 31 games, that’s two points behind pace-setting Belfast Giants who have a game in hand.
Devils have scored 112 goals this season, the second highest total in the league, and let in 63, the second lowest figure.
Contrast that with Fife who have 18 points from 32 starts and sit second-bottom of the league. They have scored 74 goals and let in 142, that’s the worst tally in the table, 12 more than bottom-markers, Dundee Stars.
Despite those numbers, and the fact that Fife are 11 points adrift of Blaze, who hold the final play-off spot, and Glasgow Clan, who are seventh, head coach, Jamie Russell, still believes his men can make the end-of-season, play-offs.
He argues that his ace cards are three big players, two of them have National Hockey League (NHL) experience, 41-year-old, American-born, David Booth, and 37-year-old, Canadian-born, Milan Lucic. The third is 29-year-old Swede, Anton Karlsson, who is the club’s leading points gatherer with 18 appearances yielding eight goals and 15 assists for 23 points.
American winger, Ethan Somoza, the club’s leading goal scorer, 32 games, nine goals and ten assists for 19 points, is also a key man as the club bids to climb the standings and Russell must hope that the quartet avoid injury as the clubs run into the business end of the season.
However, this is a team game and everybody has to pull together to get Fife out of what is a big hole after a disappointing start to the new era under new owners.
A management re-shuffle earlier this week, with Stephen Thompson the new chief operating officer, and Russell the full-time general manager, as well as coach, has provided room for optimism, so has the arrival of the experienced former NHL players.
Looking forward, Russell believes his men are a match for any team in the league, but he declared: “It does not matter who we are playing, we have to find a way.”
So, it is Cardiff on Saturday (face-off 19.00) then on to Coventry on Sunday (17.30), the club they must catch to make the top eight which guarantees a play-off spot. Flyers fans await.
GOALMOUTH ACTION: Fife at Coventry on a previous visit this term. Picture Scott Wiggins
