Flames lost their grip on a 2 goal lead, but were resilient to the end, scoring a pair of late goals to defeat the league leading Cardiff Devils by a 5-3 count on Spectrum ice.
10 seconds from the end of the 1st Charlie Curti allowed Flames to take the break with a lead.
Early in the 2nd, Cardiff levelled with a Josh MacDonald goal. Josh Waller and Curti at 35:34 and 38:38, respectively, had the home team up a pair, but a Devils reply from MacDonald just 22 seconds later made it a 1 goal affair to begin the 3rd.
67 seconds after re-start, Brett Perlini squared it at 3 apiece. Flames were forced to kill a couple of penalties in the minutes that followed and a little over 5 minutes from the end a Flames powerplay went to work and converted for the winning goal from Jack Jacome that survived a lengthy video review then inside the last 2 minutes Brett Welychka’s first since return from injury iced the final result.
Jake Kupsky turned aside 38 of 41 Cardiff shots against Mac Carruth who was 29 for 34.
“It was a bit of a crazy night from the start to the finish,” said Paul Dixon.
“Two teams really hurting and playing short especially at the back, delayed start, then a maintenance delay in the middle of the game making a lot of adversity for everyone to handle.”
“We looked much better than we did for a lot of the night before, and we were rewarded even with a few good bounces for a couple of goals. Then we gave up a lead but didn’t quit. Guys put their nose to it and killed some key penalties late, and a bunch of great saves by Jake bought us time to get a win.”
“A huge set of points and we are thrilled to be moving on to the next games on the back of a big home win.”
