SHEFFIELD, UK –Brett Ferguson had the opening pair of goals and added an assist and the Flames held the lead for the whole night during a 6-5 win at Sheffield Steelers.
Ferguson had the Flames in 2 goal lead before the opening period was halfway through thanks to a starter just over 3 minutes in and then another near the 8 minute mark. Evan Janssen extended with a a shorthanded strike inside the back 5 minutes, but a pair of late Steelers replies on the powerplay by Evan McGrath and Stefan Della Rovere made it a 1 goal game through 20.
Less than a minute into the 2nd, Ian Watters re-stored a 2 goal spread and Kruise Reddick made it 5-2 at 24:38. The Steelers powerplay cut the lead back again about halfway through the frame through Robert Dowd. Tanner Eberle had them within a single at 37:24 but the Flames extra man opportunity less than 10 seconds from the close of the frame had them holding a 6-4 lead to start the 3rd.
Though the Flames had the majority of the 3rd period shots, the Steelers had the only scoring success when they returned to a goal off the pace with about 15 minutes to spare, but they couldn’t get back to even and Spectrum’s men held on for the points.
“Getting a jump on a team like that with the first couple of goals really early makes it a difficult night for any team,” admitted Paul Dixon.
“We have been on that end of the situation and when you are forced to play multi goal catch up right from the jump, you have to be nearly perfect in order to pull the game back.”
“They did a great job of pulling back into it a couple of times but luckily we already had enough to stay in front the rest of the way.”
“We want to take a lot of the good stuff from tonight and carry it on over in the game at Spectrum against Nottingham Panthers tomorrow, and hopefully we can achieve that.”
With Flames match report
Photo’s by Sam Scott
@samscott2271
sam.scott@prohockeynews.com
@prohockeynews
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