A POOR run of form for Coventry Blaze seemingly came to an end this weekend after Danny Stewart’s men earned three hard-fought Elite League points against Dundee and Nottingham.
At one stage it looked as though the Skydome outfit could experience their second successive four-point-weekend, however they went down in penalty shots at the National Ice Centre on Sunday night, though for the first time in a while fans praised the performance of the team.
The Blaze first defeated the Dundee Stars on home ice, posting four goals past the Scottish side to lift them into the playoff zone.
After scoring his first goal of the season last weekend, defenceman Kevin Noble added to his tally by scoring after just two minutes on Saturday night – putting the Blaze one goal ahead.
Though the home side dominated puck possession, Dundee got themselves back into the game as Bruijsten’s marker brought the scores level.
However the Blaze stamped their authority on the game as Ben Davies, Ross Venus and Josh Godfrey added three goals in the concluding 30 minutes to ensure Blaze won 4-1.
The team’s streak of picking points up from games continued on Sunday night as they narrowly missed out on victory in Nottingham.
Skipper Jordan Pietrus slammed a shot against the iron while Blaze advanced on the powerplay during overtime – after both sides had scored five goals each in regulation time.
However it wasn’t to be as Steve Schultz and Alex Nikiforuk scored two penalty shots for the Panthers during the decisive shootout.
Despite letting a two-goal lead slip, Blaze coach Danny Stewart said he was pleased with his team’s performance.
He said: “I thought we played a great game of hockey, we played better on Sunday against Nottingham than we did on Saturday – that’s how it goes sometimes.
“Both ourselves and Nottingham were confident going forward and it was just one of those nights where pucks were going in.
“We looked more dangerous this weekend and it’s good to see the goals going round, our defensive work was good too.
“I was pleased with the win on Saturday night, it means we’ve won our last five games out of six at home which is a great record.
“We were in complete control of the game most of the time and we had a lot of shots.
“Stewy (Brian Stewart) had a great game as did David Clements and Ben Davies – we got the job done.”
