After falling behind by 3 on the road at Manchester, Flames rallied for 4 unanswered including 3 in the 3rd to run out with a 4-3 win over Storm in the first of a pair of pre season challenge matches.
Less than 4 minutes from period time, and just at the end of a very short 5 on 3 manpower advantage, Jesper Öhrvall slipped the home team into a lead they held through the remainder of the frame.
Just over 5 minutes into the middle set, Storm doubled their advantage with a Tyson Fawcett shorthanded marker, and they added another at 29:35 through Ryan Barrow before Sam Marklund cut the deficit back to a pair with the Flames opener seconds later that sent the visitors to the 3rd 2 goals adrift.
An early last period Flames reply brought them level in short order with Marklund’s 2nd of the contest at 43:59 and Brett Ferguson’s equalizer in the 47th minute. With 2:12 on the clock, Flames completed the comeback win when Daniel Tedesco counted the decider.
“You never really want to get too deep in thinking about a first game like this straight out of a busy 2 a day week of heavy training,” said Head Coach Paul Dixon.
“The most notable thing was probably what an odd game it was for a pre season in that there were so many penalties in the 1st and 2nd period it was not the best game for just getting everyone on the ice with regularity in full line units.”
“We delivered a fair bit of pressure and generated plenty of shots and opportunities and guys should be credited for coming back from 3 down to still get a win. We are happy to get the win and get home to try and do it again tomorrow, but it is more a game about training and getting our first look at live action so there was a lot achieved outside of the score whether we had won or lost.”
