Flames took a 3 goal lead before the game was at the midway point and never looked back on the way to a 5-1 home ice win over Coventry Blaze.
About halfway through the 1st, Lewis Hook converted a powerplay to set Flames in front and Brett Ferguson added another at 17:59 to give them a 2 goal lead at the break.
In the 27th minute, Owen Griffiths extended it to a 3 goal gap, but Alessio Luciani on the powerplay inside the period’s last 5 minutes had Coventry within a pair to begin the 3rd.
Unfortunately for the visitors, the next goal was collected by the home team when Turner Ripplinger re-stored the 3 goal margin in the 47th minute to all but put it away, and Peter Crinella made sure of it when he bagged an empty netter less than 3 minutes from close.
Eamon McAdam made 36 saves on 37 attempts and Nolan Kent for Blaze was 23 of 28.
“You always want to come into the short Christmas stoppage on the back of a win, so it is good news to have been successful a couple of nights on the bounce away then home against Blaze,” admitted Paul Dixon.
“The key word there was ‘short’ though because we get started again here very quickly and we have to be ready to go on Boxing day when we are at Manchester to re-start the proceedings.”
“If we can do what we have done the past number of games, we can have a lot of success so that is what we expect in the back half of the schedule.”
“In the meantime, we hope everyone, supporters and players alike, enjoys their Christmas and is looking forward to us getting back at it shortly.”
