3 straight Flames goals across a short span early in the 2nd, including a pair of powerplay strikes, helped the home team to a lead they never fully gave up the rest of the way during a 6-4 win over Manchester Storm.
At 3:35, Chase Harrison set Storm to a lead, but a pair of Flames replies less than 2 minutes apart late in the frame from Daniel Catenacci and Charlie Curti had Spectrum’s men in front at the break.
The pair of powerplay goals before the 2nd was 5 minutes old from Ethan Strang and Charlie Dodero had Flames suddenly holding a 4-1 lead and not long after that it was 5-1 thanks to a Ryan Tait marker. Grant Hebert got one back for Storm at 32:19 and Jake Durflinger followed on in short order to pull Storm within a pair before the period came to a close.
Matt Alvaro opened a 3 goal gap once again when he netted at 45:45. Alexis D'Aoust inside the last 6 minutes cut their deficit before time wound down on the Flames win.
Eamon McAdam stopped 41 of 45 shots against Storm’s Evan Weninger who turned away 23 of 29.
“After Thursday’s game we were not feeling good about ourselves so this win, as they all seem to, feels massive,” said Paul Dixon.
“Manchester came out really hard at the start and we were maybe a bit lucky we were not down by more than one in that first 5-6 minutes, but getting a couple of late period goals then seeing the powerplay string together a couple of conversions was a massive boost.”
“Playing with a good lead makes life a lot easier especially against a gritty, no quit team like Manchester who kept battling back and never let us feel like the game was in hand.”
“We are thrilled to bank that win and now we look ahead to Cardiff away then home over the New Year transition.”
