3 straight goals early in the 2nd period put the Flames in a deficit from which they would never recover during a 6-2 Challenge Cup home defeat to the visiting Cardiff Devils.
Spectrum’s men were off to a quick start just 21 seconds in with a Matt Alvaro goal that staked them to a lead, but the difference was short lived as Cardiff tied it up on a powerplay through Brett Perlini about 5 minutes later.
Early in the 2nd a trio of quick strikes in less than 4 minutes tossed the Flames into the deep hole with Zach O’Brien scoring at 21:57; Evan Mosey extending their lead less than 2 minutes after that and Perlini’s 2nd at 25:37. Before the halfway mark, Lewis Hook cut the deficit to a pair, but a 35th minute Ryan Barrow strike sent the visitors to the final frame again holding the 3 goal cushion.
Just inside the last 10 minutes, former Flames forward Ben Davies added the final strike to complete the contest’s scoring total.
“It won’t surprise anyone that we are not happy with that performance,” said Paul Dixon.
“When you are able to jump on a team early like we did, then even missed a chance or two to extend, you want to be able to carry that through the night, but we didn’t.”
“We had powerplay chances in that 1st period where we could have made our lives easier for the rest of the night and we didn’t make the most of it and Cardiff then did what they did in the 2nd period to bury us.”
“There is a lot we can learn there and we will have to dust ourselves off and get back to training this week to see if we can make some corrections heading into a new weekend of play.”
