While on the road at Manchester Storm to kick off the Challenge Cup, the hosts jumped on the Flames early, scoring 3 unanswered in the opening set on their way to a 5-1 win over the visitors from Spectrum.
Former Flames skater Ryan Hughes converted a powerplay less than a minute in. Cameron Critchlow added another at 6:29 and a Tyler Hinam strike in the 15th minute during a Jake Coughler major penalty, and match ejection, made it 3 at the break.
Less than halfway through the middle set, Storm added another off the stick of Dallas Ehrhardt and they carried the 4 goal spread into the 3rd.
Early in the final frame, Ethan Strang got one back for the visitors, but a 2nd Major penalty and game misconduct, this one to Brett Ferguson was followed by another Storm powerplay goal from Alex Robert to complete the final tally.
“Well that’s not the way we envisaged starting the new season,” admitted Head Coach Paul Dixon.
“We got in penalty trouble early on and Manchester did a terrific job of jumping on those chances and making us pay for it and putting us down very early by a difference that made the rest of the night a very difficult challenge.”
“We have 70 games ahead of us so we are not going to hit the panic button already, but certainly a lot of stuff to clean up going forward and we will expect ourselves to be much better tomorrow night.”
