Eamon McAdam allowed only a single, while a late 1st period powerplay goal and another early in the 2nd put Flames in a lead they would not relinquish on the way to a home doubleheader opening 4-1 win over the visiting Fife Flyers.
Spectrum’s men got the game’s starter when Daniel Tedesco was on target to convert a powerplay just under 6 minutes from period time.
Less than 2 minutes into the 2nd, another Flames powerplay put one on the board, this one from Ryan Tait. 83 seconds after that Lewis Hook had Flames 3 goals to the good and in the back half of the 2nd, they added another from Brett Welycka to take a 4-0 lead to the final set.
Early in the 3rd, a major penalty and game misconduct to Charles-Antoine Paiement put Flames powerplay back to work, but they were unable to add on before Flyers got their only marker about a minute after killing the entire 5 minute run; Kieran Craig with tally that closed out the evening’s offence.
Eamon McAdam stopped all but 1 of 36 shots while Shane Owen turned away 58 of 62.
“There were a couple of key points to get is on the winning path,” said Paul Dixon.
“Eamon made a couple of early saves to keep it level, when Fife had some good chances, and then getting goals on each of our first two powerplays to end the 1st and start the 2nd put us in a very good spot to play a lot of the game with a lead and get the result.”
“Like I said earlier in the week, when you play both games at home and don’t have a travel burden, you really want to make the most of the weekend and you have to win that first game to hope for a maximum take from the points over the set and now we have to follow up with a strong performance against Belfast Sunday.”
