Flyers Edge Storm in Overtime After Tightly Contested Encounter

The Fife Flyers made the long 240-mile trip south from Scotland on Wednesday evening to take on a Storm side brimming with confidence after beating the Steelers in their own backyard the previous weekend.

Despite the lengthy journey, the Flyers showed no signs of the dreaded "bus legs", holding their own, albeit mostly on the counter-attack, as the Storm pushed hard for an early goal. With few meaningful chances on net during the middle stages of the opening period, both netminders dealt with any traffic comfortably. It would take a breakaway for the deadlock to be broken in the Storm's favour, as a skilful fake shot and forehand-backhand move saw Maksimovich slide the puck past Pietila at the back post. The unassisted goal timed at 14:51.

Fife came out for the second period full of energy and immediately put Storm's defence under pressure, creating some good looks on net. The visitors tied the contest at 23:40 when Partanen threaded an accurate pass through the blue line to Solder, who then dished the puck to Petizian whose precise shot beat DeRidder at the far post. With the first penalty of the game coming late in the period, Storm's power-play unit set up well and caused a lot of problems for the visitors' defence. McGauley came closest to scoring, firing the puck just wide of the target. Not long after, Fife also had their first opportunity on the power play as Dudek was handed a minor penalty for interference. Storm's defence held firm, however, and saw out the second period, keeping the match tied at 1-1.

Both sides came out swinging in the final period, exchanging waves of attack as neither team seemed willing to settle for a regulation-time draw. Flyers powerplay unit had their second chance to make an impact at 46:43 as Locke sat two minutes for interference. The well drilled penalty kill did its job however, keeping their shape and boxing out Fife's special team. In what was such a free-flowing encounter goals were strangely hard to come by, and with the clock ticking down a tense final few minutes tested the home crowd's nerves. A regulation-time winner never came and the game headed to sudden death overtime. It was the Flyers who clinched the extra point at 60:34 when Pierce picked up his own rebounded shot and wrapped the puck around the back of the net, as DeRidder unfortunately lost track of the play. 

By: Kristian Stokwisz