Excel Hull Stingrays 3 - 2 Fife Flyers (SO)
The Excel Hull Stingrays were tonight extremely lucky to claim their first win of the 11/12 EIHL campaign, finally persevering over a resilient and hardworking Fife Flyers side by three goals to two by way of a shootout.
Facing each other for the first time in almost exactly six years, the two sides came into the game looking for their first league wins of the season, although last night the visitors beat Edinburgh 3-2 in the Challenge Cup.
Similarly to local rivals Dundee last season, the Flyers have had a baptism of fire in their opening EIHL fixtures this season but settled into this fixture early, holding their own in the opening stages.
Nevertheless, eight minutes in Jereme Tendler netted the Stingrays tenth powerplay goal of the season, after Derek Campbell fluffed his one time shot, to give the home side a lead that most assumed would be the first in a routine win.
Though as the period wore on, the plucky Flyers showed it would be nowhere near that easy as they chipped away at a sloppy, scrappy and incoherent Stingrays side.
As they had during stages of opening period, Sylvain Cloutier's Stingrays began the second period well on top, dominating their opponents for nearly ten minutes only to come away with nothing after a series of shots blocked or fired wide - the latter an all too unwelcome theme this season.
That dominance was only broken up by a counter-attack that saw Steve Gunn ring a shot off the cross-bar.
That proved to be a warning shot for the Rays though, as Gunn - moments after a Jason Silverthorn hooking penalty had expired - shot past netminder Christian Boucher to level the scores and shock the home crowd.
Three minutes later - on a Frantisek Bakrlik penalty - Silverthorn was handed the chance to make amends for taking what turned out to be a costly penalty but could not convert a shorthanded breakaway on Fife's ever solid netminder Garrett Zemlak - though this would be one of his final actions in the game.
Zemlak - seeing Stingrays forward Derek Campbell go unpenalised for an apparent late check on the buzzer on teammate Chris Wands - pounced on the Rays agitator and was swiftly kicked out of the game on the second period buzzer with a 5+ match penalty for excessive roughness.
Though that could have been a big turning point, the Flyers had other ideas. With Blair Daly replacing the Canadian between the posts, the visitors continued to play their tough, hard working game.
Even after defenceman Dmitri Rodin - the Rays deserved man of the match - had rifled home a shot from the top of the circle for his third of the season on Daly's first shot of the match, the Flyers looked unperturbed.
Continuing with the kind of work ethic and attitude that the home team should themselves have carried from the off, the Flyers almost inevitably leveled - albeit after Martin Ondrej had hit the post searching for a goal that could have potentially killed the game off.
Import Matt Cohen's shot from the point redirected home by player-coach Todd Duitaume on the powerplay for his first ever Elite League goal and the game tying goal.
Despite a lot of huffing and puffing from the Stingrays - as well as a surefire game winning miss from Derek Campbell at the backdoor - the last ten minutes passed without a deciding goal and the game moved into overtime with both sides claiming their first league points.
Overtime saw the Rays re-assume their dominance on the game, as Fife looked to accept that their best chance of claiming the extra point lay in penalty shots, but despite asserted pressure could not find the game winner.
Rodin eventually proved to be the hero once more, firing five hole past Daly in sudden death with his third attempt - after Tendler and Stewart had earlier cancelled each other out - to thankfully give the Rays their long awaited first win of the season.
To say that the result solely came down to the Stingrays underperforming does a massive disservice to Fife, who executed a near perfect game plan given the resources at their disposal this early in their first EIHL season and worked as hard as any team has in the Hull Arena in recent times. Though it has to be said, despite the win, the Rays overall performance was poor.
Cloutier undoubtedly now has a big job on his hands after a disjointed performance. Luckily for him it is still early in the season and the Stingrays, despite their many flaws, somehow still managed to claim the two points.
Though the large credit in this game must go to Duitaume's side for a remarkable performance in the Flyers long awaited return to Hull.
The unrelenting EIHL fixture list continues next weekend with a now all the more daunting double header against Sheffield and Nottingham, in the league and Challenge Cup respectively.
The Excel Hull Stingrays were tonight extremely lucky to claim their first win of the 11/12 EIHL campaign, finally persevering over a resilient and hardworking Fife Flyers side by three goals to two by way of a shootout.
Facing each other for the first time in almost exactly six years, the two sides came into the game looking for their first league wins of the season, although last night the visitors beat Edinburgh 3-2 in the Challenge Cup.
Similarly to local rivals Dundee last season, the Flyers have had a baptism of fire in their opening EIHL fixtures this season but settled into this fixture early, holding their own in the opening stages.
Nevertheless, eight minutes in Jereme Tendler netted the Stingrays tenth powerplay goal of the season, after Derek Campbell fluffed his one time shot, to give the home side a lead that most assumed would be the first in a routine win.
Though as the period wore on, the plucky Flyers showed it would be nowhere near that easy as they chipped away at a sloppy, scrappy and incoherent Stingrays side.
As they had during stages of opening period, Sylvain Cloutier's Stingrays began the second period well on top, dominating their opponents for nearly ten minutes only to come away with nothing after a series of shots blocked or fired wide - the latter an all too unwelcome theme this season.
That dominance was only broken up by a counter-attack that saw Steve Gunn ring a shot off the cross-bar.
That proved to be a warning shot for the Rays though, as Gunn - moments after a Jason Silverthorn hooking penalty had expired - shot past netminder Christian Boucher to level the scores and shock the home crowd.
Three minutes later - on a Frantisek Bakrlik penalty - Silverthorn was handed the chance to make amends for taking what turned out to be a costly penalty but could not convert a shorthanded breakaway on Fife's ever solid netminder Garrett Zemlak - though this would be one of his final actions in the game.
Zemlak - seeing Stingrays forward Derek Campbell go unpenalised for an apparent late check on the buzzer on teammate Chris Wands - pounced on the Rays agitator and was swiftly kicked out of the game on the second period buzzer with a 5+ match penalty for excessive roughness.
Though that could have been a big turning point, the Flyers had other ideas. With Blair Daly replacing the Canadian between the posts, the visitors continued to play their tough, hard working game.
Even after defenceman Dmitri Rodin - the Rays deserved man of the match - had rifled home a shot from the top of the circle for his third of the season on Daly's first shot of the match, the Flyers looked unperturbed.
Continuing with the kind of work ethic and attitude that the home team should themselves have carried from the off, the Flyers almost inevitably leveled - albeit after Martin Ondrej had hit the post searching for a goal that could have potentially killed the game off.
Import Matt Cohen's shot from the point redirected home by player-coach Todd Duitaume on the powerplay for his first ever Elite League goal and the game tying goal.
Despite a lot of huffing and puffing from the Stingrays - as well as a surefire game winning miss from Derek Campbell at the backdoor - the last ten minutes passed without a deciding goal and the game moved into overtime with both sides claiming their first league points.
Overtime saw the Rays re-assume their dominance on the game, as Fife looked to accept that their best chance of claiming the extra point lay in penalty shots, but despite asserted pressure could not find the game winner.
Rodin eventually proved to be the hero once more, firing five hole past Daly in sudden death with his third attempt - after Tendler and Stewart had earlier cancelled each other out - to thankfully give the Rays their long awaited first win of the season.
To say that the result solely came down to the Stingrays underperforming does a massive disservice to Fife, who executed a near perfect game plan given the resources at their disposal this early in their first EIHL season and worked as hard as any team has in the Hull Arena in recent times. Though it has to be said, despite the win, the Rays overall performance was poor.
Cloutier undoubtedly now has a big job on his hands after a disjointed performance. Luckily for him it is still early in the season and the Stingrays, despite their many flaws, somehow still managed to claim the two points.
Though the large credit in this game must go to Duitaume's side for a remarkable performance in the Flyers long awaited return to Hull.
The unrelenting EIHL fixture list continues next weekend with a now all the more daunting double header against Sheffield and Nottingham, in the league and Challenge Cup respectively.
Rays Rating
3
FBB Three Stars
1 - Dmitri Rodin (1+0)
2 - Christian Boucher (23 saves)
3 - Bobby Chamberlain (0+0)
