Flyers’ search for players continues

Fife Flyers’ associate coach Jeff Hutchins admitted yesterday the club had suffered some “bad luck” in their search for players.

But he stressed it was continuing its efforts to bring fresh blood into Kirkcaldy.

Hutchins said the Flyers were in the midst of an injury crisis and fatigued as they failed in their bid for a weekend win double in the Viaplay Elite League.

The Kirkcaldy club were edged 3-2 at the Fife Ice Arena by Scottish rivals Glasgow Clan, despite the home side outshooting the visitors 29-26.

The game came 24 hours after Fife had thrashed Nottingham Panthers 6-1 in the Midlands on Friday.

Hutchins, a former Dundee Stars player-coach, said: “It is clear that we are going through an injury crisis and we were hopeful that Janne Kivilahti would be back in the line-up.

“He could not play at the level he wanted to so we had to pull him during the game which is always tough.

“For me, to set the scene, coming into this game we did a really good job going down to Nottingham and turning out a pretty emphatic victory there and coming back here was always going to be tough.

“The guys put so much in on Friday but I thought, barring a 10-minute spell in the second period, the guys did a good job and we are proud of the effort for the weekend.”

Hutchins praised Clan goaltender John Muse and said the home side outshot Clan 12-4 in the final session.

He added: “We thank the fans for a great atmosphere, both sets of fans did a good job but we have got to do some stuff and not get down on ourselves and prepare for Wednesday.”

That, of course, is the first-leg of the Challenge Cup quarter-final against Dundee Stars at the Dundee Ice Arena.

Mathieu Roy opened the scoring for the visitors 36 seconds into the middle session and nine minutes later Gary Haden was set up by Roy to make it 2-0.

Defenceman Brayden Sherbinin then made his mark to open Fife’s account after 46 minutes but Clan popped in the third when Roy netted his second.

Christian Hausinger pulled one back with 30 seconds left to play but Fife could not find a leveller.