Ryan Hughes and Peter Crinella had a pair of goals each and the Flames scored 3 in the first and a couple more in each period that followed on the way to a 7-2 home ice win over Glasgow Clan.
Early goals by Crinella and Marcus Tesink just 24 seconds apart got the night underway. Michael Pelech converted a Clan powerplay at 13:05, but Steven McParland, with what turned out to be the winner, re-stored the multi goal lead inside the last 5 minutes of the opening set.
At 27:18, Crinella’s 2nd extended the Flames lead to a trio. Hughes made it a 5-1 count before Gary Haden erased one in the 38th minute to pull Clan 3 off the pace to start the 3rd.
Just 38 seconds into that final stanza, Lewis Hook got that one back before Hughes’ 2nd of the evening in the 47th minute completed the win for Spectrum’s men.
“The one thing that we liked a lot about this game was that we did not give up an early multi goal lead that we also had in the last 2 games that we ended up losing,” explained Paul Dixon.
“Any time you can get a jump on a team you want to be able to turn that into a win, and tonight when they cut the deficit we just kept at them and were able to re-store the gap and I think that was a big part of everything that followed.”
“I thought every single guy played well for us tonight and for a full game, which was something we have been looking for in a lot of earlier performances where we were good for stretches and not nearly as good for others.”
“Now we need to try and repeat it Saturday and Sunday at Cardiff then home to Sheffield.”
