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Flames put pressure on Phoenix at top
Photograph of Guildford Flames forward David Longstaff in action against the Manchester Phoenix copyright of Dave Steadman.
With one foot in a hole and the other on a banana peel entering a pair of weekend games against league leading Manchester Phoenix, a resilient Guildford Flames ice hockey team move forward after tacking a 5-4 regulation road win on Sunday to the 2-1 overtime success one night prior in front of a sold out Spectrum crowd; ultimately turning what 48 hours earlier was a potential nightmare 9 point chiasm to the top of the table into a into a 2 point margin to keep afloat in the league title race.
In the weekend closer, Miroslav Hala made 48 saves while his club, in a relatively rare turn of events, received 14 minutes in minor penalties against only a single penalty assessed to the home team just 22 seconds before the end. The Phoenix got on the board first with a Marcus Kristoffersson goal not long after the opening 2 minutes. A natural hat trick by Nathan Rempel in a little more than a 10 minute span, though, put the Flames up by a pair at the first break. The Canadian forward evened the game at 6:58. He gave his team the lead at 13:55 before making it a 2 goal edge in the 18th minute. The Phoenix didn’t waste much time getting back level. Curtis Huppe cut the lead in half at 24:18 and at 34:48 on a powerplay Pavel Gomeniuk had the teams playing on even terms once again; a situation that carried through into the deciding period. Less than 4 minutes into the session, Rempel added an unlikely 4th to his evening tally before the eventual winner was credited to Matt Towe at 52:54 as Surrey’s outfit took a 5-3 lead into the final 2 minutes. A Phoenix powerplay, their 7th of the night, paid off when Huppe pulled the club to within 1 just 80 seconds from time, but the travellers were able to hold onto the slimmest advantage to secure the win and solid footing for the stretch run.
The Phoenix arrived in Surrey on Saturday hoping to widen the 1st to 2nd place gap which was at the time sitting at 5 points. Unfortunately for the travellers, a Lukas Smital goal 3:38 into overtime settled a 2-1 Flames win. The 1st period ended in a scoreless draw as both sides worked to ensure an early mistake would not prove costly later on in the evening. In the middle frame, both Steve Fone in the Phoenix net and Miroslav Hala behind the Flames were up to the task of carrying the scoreless game into the final 20 minutes of play. The intensity and nerves of the 2101 people in attendance continued to escalate before most of them were finally offered a release valve in the 47th minute thanks to Martin Masa whose one time bullet off a Smital feed opened the scoring for a 1-0 lead. Just a few minutes later, though, the Phoenix levelled when a Huppe shot deflected off a Flames stick before finding its way to the net. The home team had several opportunities to win it late and looked to have done so with just 58 seconds on the clock, but the tally was ultimately waved off to force the extra time. With penalty shots looming, a Flames attack ended when Matt Towe moved behind the Phoenix net then slipped the puck to Smital who collected, spun and fired all in one motion with just enough zip to squeeze it past Fone for the win.
Flames Head Coach looked back at his team’s delivery under enormous pressure:
“We couldn’t have had any more pressure on us as a club. Some stumbles over the past few weekends have been very costly in the points race for the league title and it put us in a position where we had to win both of our final head to head games against Manchester to: a) stay with the table pace and b) to own the tiebreak advantage if the league ends in a draw. After the poor showing at home last weekend, there was the added heat guys put on themselves to offer much better to most of the 2100 people in attendance who undoubtedly were expecting great improvement over the week before. We really couldn’t even afford a weekend split because we would have still been 5 points back, and dropping both would have had us in an unsurmountable, nearly double digit deficit. The guys responded very well and we had guys step up at real clutch moments to allow us to come out of the weekend having made up huge ground on a great hockey team. We are now back in the kind of place one would hope for at this time of season. There is a lot of hockey to play and we have a string here of the league’s top teams so whilst we are very, very pleased, and very relieved also, with the outcome of an important weekend, it means nothing if we do not continue to get results over the last third of the season and that has to remain our focus in preparation.”
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-3 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-5 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-4 |
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| 12th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
2-4 |
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| 11th March 2006 19:00 | ||
| Club | GP | W | L | OL | GF | GA | Pts |
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5-8 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
4-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
5-2 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
3-7 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
1-1 |
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| 19th March 2006 19:00 | ||
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- Campbell and Flames agree terms
- Flames re-sign David Savage
- Longstaff stays with Flames
- Flames re-sign Curtis Huppe
- Towe departs Flames
