Sunday’s action brought plenty of goals, but no change.
The Elite League standings remain as they were, with the Belfast Giants leading the Nottingham Panthers and Sheffield Steelers by six points at the top of the tree.
Welcome to Around the Rinks, our daily summary of every team’s post-game media remarks.
Around the Rinks: Sunday, 8 March
Fife Flyers 1-7 Sheffield Steelers
Robert Dowd, Sheffield Steelers (Image: Gillian Anderson)
Mike Courts, Fife Flyers:
I can’t fault the work ethic of our guys: we had a very intense game against Guildford last night and came back on a 10-hour bus. I felt like our first period was what I expect from us. We wanted to tighten up a couple of areas, but it got away from us.
We were expecting Sheffield to be at the level they were in the first and that didn’t happen. They found their legs in the second and we were on our way down. That’s where we started to lose the game. The guys are all disappointed. They want to win and play for each other.
Aaron Fox, Sheffield Steelers:
Fife came ready to play. They were in Guildford last night and had a tough trip back up, but they took it to us in the first period. I thought that 1-1 was probably about as good as we could’ve hoped for from that period.
We started moving our feet and playing our way in the second and third. Fife are playing light with three lines and our depth took over that hockey game. We know how important every point is: four points this weekend and two games against Belfast next week. We’re six points back, so that’s an opportunity for us to close the gap.
Coventry Blaze 1-6 Nottingham Panthers
Kevin Moore, Coventry Blaze:
I thought we started out flying: we were good for the first eight minutes and then the shorties sucked the air out. There were some minutes where we were playing okay, but we were swimming up stream the rest of the way.
It’s disappointing, but we’ll find the teaching points and stack some good days together in the week.
Danny Stewart, Nottingham Panthers:
I loved our game. I thought Coventry put us under pressure in the first five minutes. Coming into a smaller rink, we were caught turning the puck over and [Kevin Carr] kept us in it.
We went on the penalty kill, you never expect to score two shorties in 30 seconds, and that woke us up a bit. It gave us some life and put Coventry back on their heels.
From there, we played simple, hard hockey, which is what you need to have success in this rink.
Belfast Giants 5-4 Cardiff Devils
Adam Keefe, Belfast Giants:
That was another good game of hockey. I thought our guys were really good: there were some things we want back, defensively, but I everything else was great.
We managed the third period great and you could see in those key moments that some guys were playing championship hockey out there. It’s exactly what we need against a very good Cardiff team. They’re fighting for everything in the third period to get something back, but [Jake Kupsky] closed the door.
We had some big blocks, face-off wins, and chips out. [Scott Conway] put it on ice by winning that face-off battle and scoring the empty-netter. Obviously, they scored the fourth, but we managed it well after that.
Paul Thompson, Cardiff Devils:
It was a tight game, like last night. From my perspective, we’re obviously upset that we lost the game, but it was a big improvement in effort and commitment from seven days ago. That’s what we asked of the players.
We made a couple of mistakes tonight that we didn’t last night: that’s probably the difference.
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