Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Stars play-off despite their
FiFe Flyers clinched the Gardiner Conference title at the weekend with three straight wins.
After beating Braehead Clan 6-3 on Friday night, they hammered Dundee Stars 7-0 in Kirkcaldy on Saturday before clinching the title in Dundee last night with an overtime 7-6 win.
It was Stars’ fifth and sixth straight defeats but, with the one point earned in regulation time last night, their play-off hopes remain alive. However, they have dropped two places in the standings to 10th.
It should have been two points last night, though, after they came back from 4-1 down to lead 6-5 with 16 seconds left.
With the game just one minute old, Stars’ Emerson Hrynyk was given a two minute minor for boarding. On the powerplay, Peter LeBlanc gave Flyers a 1-0 lead.
Dundee’s Adam Harding and Fife’s Tom Muir were each awarded five minute penalties for fighting with Muir receiving another two minutes for illegal equipment. With Stars on the powerplay, Gabriel Levesque fired the equaliser.
Flyers took the lead again with a Shayne Stockton unassisted goal. He struck again and, less than one minute later, Danick Gauthier gave the visitors a 4-1 advantage.
Stars hit back through Marc-Olivier Mimar.
Dundee started the final session on the ascendancy and, as a result, Flyers called a time-out after 44 minutes.
However, after the restart, it was Stars who seemed to benefit as Omar Pacha scored to bring the home side to within one goal of the visitors.
Gauthier grabbed his second to restore Flyers’ two-goal advantage.
His team-mate Ricards Birzins was then sent to the penalty bin for a twominute holding call. On the powerplay, Jimmy Jensen scored to make it 5-4 Flyers.
With just over two minutes left, Birzins was sent to the box for a second time, this on a holding call, and it proved costly as Chris Lawrence levelled the game at 5-5.
With just over one minute left, Dundee went on the powerplay when Ian Young was penalised for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Lukas Lundvald Nielsen put Stars 6-5 ahead with 46 seconds left.
The drama wasn’t over as Fife pulled goalie Iles in favour of the extra skater. With 16 seconds remaining, Charlie Mosey scored to tie the game at 6-6.