Flames win on Road at Coventry

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In another highly offensive night against Coventry Blaze, the Flames got the best of the deal with Jamie Crooks scoring the winning penalty while joining TJ Foster and Brett Ferguson for a 9 point night that helped Spectrum’s men with a 6-5 penalty win at Coventry Blaze.

Like 24 hours earlier, the Flames jumped out to an early lead with Calle Ackered and Crooks powerplay goals before the evening was 5 minutes old. However, again like the night before, Blaze recovered the deficit and went ahead with a pair of Shawn Pauly goals and a Tim Crowder strike over a 10 minute stretch, but a Foster answer at 16:38 had the teams knotted at 3 through the opening frame.

The only goal of the middle period was off Ferguson’s stick just over the midway point and they took a 4-3 lead to the final stanza.

Ben Davies added another on the powerplay at 43:53, but in sticking with a similar theme to the weekend, Blaze climbed back with Dillon Lawrence and Luke Ferrera replies at 49:51 and 54:40 to split a point each and force deciding measures.

5 minutes of 3 on 3 overtime solved nothing, but penalty goals from Ian Watters and Crooks was enough to overcome Alex Nikiforuk and send the Flames home with the win.

“You don’t often get back to back games that have a similar set of events where the scoring happens in a way that leaves one with a ‘no lead is safe’ sort of mentality wondering exactly how many goals will it take for a team to win it,” said Paul Dixon.

“We took away 3 points from the weekend so there is nothing wrong with that, but it does not negate the fact that we have some things to work on going forward.”

“Having said that, every night is different and if it takes 6 goals to get a win or 2 goals to get a win, teams have to be able to play the game as it comes and not every night is going to be a defensive clinic.”

“We are thrilled to get that win, and we will try to tighten some things up and be ready to have success on Wednesday night at Manchester.”