Garet Hunt praised his Fife Flyers squad after a 3-2 overtime win over Dundee Stars in front of over 2,000 fans in their final home Elite League game of the season.
The Canadian winger and coach Michael Courts wanted to send fans home happy and Hunt said: “It was right down to the wire and it was a huge game for us. The fans were pumped and the roof almost came off this place (The Fife Ice Arena).”
Fife took the first session 2-1, lost the middle period 1-0 before blanking the third then netting in the extra session.
It was Great Britain international, Logan Neilson, who provided the final touch with 4min 39sec of the overtime period gone for his second strike of the evening, and he was set up by Ian Scheid. Home fans in the stadium erupted.
Fife narrowly outshot their Tayside rivals 33-31 in a game which saw the deadlock broken by Ben Brown beat Stars’ netminder Emil Kruse after 2min 18sec when he was fed by Ethan Hadden.
Stars called a timeout after 6min 33sec and re-grouped. They hit back after 13min 52sec through Spencer Naas with Keanu Yamamoto and Otto Nieminen providing the ammunition, but shortly after, 15min 08sec to be precise, Neilson was set up by Josh Winquist for 2-1.
Stars levelled at 2-2 through an unassisted strike from Martin Jurgens on 28min 33sec and the scoreline stayed that way until the final buzzer.
Into overtime and Dundee were hit with a bench minor after 62min 40sec for having too many men on the ice, and that proved costly as Neilson netted on the power play to take the two points.
WATCHING BRIEF: Jeremy Masella on patrol against Dundee Stars at Kirkcaldy. Picture by Jillian McFarlane and courtesy of the Elite League
