Flyers must deal with issues, says Dutiaume

Todd Dutiaume yesterday admitted that the mood in Fife Flyers’ dressing-room was “incredibly low”.

And the club’s head coach said there were issues within his hand-picked group.

One of them was that there are “individuals” the team relies on for what he called “offensive production” and he added: “We have seen that drop dramatically.”

His frank assessment followed a pointless weekend culminating in Sunday’s 4-1 home defeat to high-flying Sheffield Steelers.

It was certainly an improvement on the 10-3 hammering by the Yorkshire club on their last visit.

But it came 24 hours after a 4-3 reverse at Nottingham Panthers.

Downcast Dutiaume said it had been a trying month for the group.

He added: “The positive of the night was that both the crowd and players were up for it.

“There was a great buzz around the building and the guys fed off that and responded well.

“I can’t fault the effort level and I felt we were engaged but there are a couple of things that are plaguing this team right now and it is something that we are all well aware of but we have not come out and said anything.

“It is important that we are honest and upfront.

“Effort level is one thing but we have a number of individuals in this line-up that we count on for offensive production and we have seen that drop drastically from past expectations of players.

“We are nightly punished for our individual errors, and they are individual breakdowns, but those goals (against Sheffield) were the result of individual guys missing their assignments.

“On the flip side, in the other zone we put 37 shots on that guy (the Sheffield netminder) and I thought he played well but we were not punishing.

“Getting opportunities on net is a whole different thing than having it in the back of the net,” Dutiaume went on.

“Our powerplay which we have been claiming for weeks here has been up at 20% has dropped after this weekend, it was ice cold.

“If you don’t produce on your powerplay but the fact of the matter is that they gave us six or seven powerplay opportunities and we just do not look a threat.

“It needs a major adjustment and it really needs to be looked at rather than trust in the process.”

Fife Flyers head coach Todd Dutiaume can’t fault his team’s effort.