It’s back down to earth with a bump
Braehead Clan’s hopes of a winning weekend were halted in their tracks with defeat away to Fife Flyers on Sunday evening.
John Tripp’s side had hoped to follow up their win over Edinburgh Capitals the previous night with another win.
But they had to head home disappointed, having failed to keep up with their conference rivals as they succumbed to a 5-1 defeat to Flyers.
Clan struggled out of the traps and Flyers took full advantage as Chase Schaber opened the scoring after just three minutes. The forward simply drove at the Clan defence and provided a neat finish beyond Ryan Nie to break the deadlock.
But the visitors quickly regrouped and got themselves back on level terms a few minutes later. Clan took full advantage of a five-on-three powerplay, with Tyler Shattock taking matters into his own hands to level the scores up unassisted.
However, the game continued to swing, and unfortunately for Clan it was in favour of the hosts.
Fife found themselves back in front soon after as Carlo Finucci helped to set up Peter LeBlanc, who simply applied to the finish to muscle the Flyers back ahead at the end of the first period.
Flyers continued to pile on the pressure in the second session, with Finucci almost making it 3-1, before Nie provided the heroics in goals to block away an effort from Danick Gauthier.
But Flyers’ patience was eventually rewarded as Todd Dutiaume’s side extended their lead before the end of the second break, with Schaber again finding the back of the net, this time with a powerful strike.
The momentum was well and truly in favour of the hosts now going into the third period, with further goals putting a seal on the clash.
Finucci added a fourth after James Isaacs took full advantage of some slack play from the Clan. That fourth goal put the game beyond any doubt, with Clan simply trying to keep themselves in it.
But Isaacs himself added number fifth with a well-struck effort which gave Nie no chance to seal Flyers second victory over Clan in the space of two weeks.