Blaze in seventh heaven as Storm battered
A THREE-GOAL blitz in the opening five minutes set the tone as a rampant Genting Casino Coventry Blaze secured an impressive 7-2 victory over Manchester Storm at the Skydome Arena.
The Elite League’s top goalscorer Marco Vallerand opened the scoring with just a minute gone.
The Canadian made it 2-0 shortly after via a five-on-three powerplay (3.13).
Adam Courchaine then registered on the following five-onfour advantage (4.47), adding to his assist on the second goal and extending his point-scoring streak to nine games.
On his home return from injury, assistant captain Ryan Dingle was credited with a fourth Blaze goal (12.42), the puck actually finding the back of the net off Manchester’s unfortunate Luke Moffatt.
Before the blistering first period was done, Gaelan Patterson was to beat Mike Clemente for a fifth time (19.43) sending a shocked Storm side to the locker-room 5-0 down.
Ryan Finnerty’s men literally came out fighting in the second period.
Linden Springer picking up a 2+10 instigator penalty forcing Ben Lake to drop the gloves just 12 seconds in.
The scrap did little to change the momentum though as Vallerand secured a hat-trick goal on the powerplay (24.09), the third of the night for Blaze, a marked improvement from the struggles the night before in Milton Keynes where they lost 6-1. Manchester finally got on the board through Moffatt (26.27) before Blaze’s Finnish trialist Patrik Moisio was given a match penalty for checking from behind – but not before fighting Shane Bakker, the Storm forward who came looking for retribution receiving 2+10 for instigating.
As things got more and more heated on the ice, strong words were also used between the benches with Blaze coach Danny Stewart and Storm’s Finnerty exchanging pleasantries on multiple occasions. Ciaran Long made it a 6-2 game just after the half-way mark (30.29), the final goal of the night coming early in the third period.
The hard-working Ben Lake was rewarded (44.08) for 7-2, the assist going to Blaze man of the match Dingle who collected three points overall.
Storm’s frustrations were evident as the game came to a close, Dallas Ehrhardt and Dane Byers both receiving 10 minute personal misconduct penalties for abuse of official Tom Pering.
Blaze assistant coach Brett Robinson said: “The way we came out was unbelievable.
“Things got a bit chippy at the end but we came away without too many guys hurt. Getting the early powerplay goals got the guys upbeat.
“It was a great performance and we’re going to feel good about this one.”