Last time Flames visited Manchester the home team blasted the visitors by an 8-1 count, but on this occasion, it was Spectrum’s men with the offensive burst thanks to 3 goals in each period on the way to a 9-2 road win at Storm.
An 8th minute Rob Lachowicz goal got things started for Spectrum’s men. Daniel Tedesco doubled the lead at 9:02. Ryan Tait made it a 3 goal advantage less than 2 minutes later, but a late period Storm powerplay goal through Liam Blackburn cut their deficit to a pair at the break.
At 24:40, Peter Crinella re-stored the Flames original lead. Tedesco’s 2nd of the contest just 52 seconds later and Logan Fredericks a couple minutes after that had Flames holding a 6-1 margin mitigated slightly by another Storm powerplay goal, this one at 38:33 off the stick of Cole Carter.
In the 3rd, Ian McNulty made it a 7-1 count at 42:33 and Tait’s 2nd at 46:46 followed by a Sam Marklund powerplay marker shortly thereafter closed out the evening’s offensive display.
Eamon McAdam in the Flames net turned aside 26 of 28 shots, while Jeremy Brodeur was 27 of 35.
“If there was ever a game where you don’t expect something to happen the way it did, this was probably it,” began Head Coach Paul Dixon.
“I certainly don’t mean I didn’t expect the guys to perform well, because we always expect that. However, scoring 9 goals on their much smaller pad that is not entirely suited to our particular skill set and playing style would not have been on our prediction list.”
“We jumped on them early, and as the night went on we just has a lot of good fortune with our good chances and it turned into a win we really needed so it is a great achievement for these guys.”
“It’s just one game, though, and none of that scoring counts in tomorrow’s game so it is key that we find a way to settle down and focus in on Nottingham and try to follow up with a win on home ice.”
