Cup points proving elusive but Fife win brightens Hull’s weekend

HULL Stingrays are still searching for their first points in Group B of the Challenge Cup after a 6-4 defeat to Nottingham Panthers.
CLOSE RUN THING: Hull Stingrays were edged out 6-4 by defending Cup champions Nottingham Panthers. Picture: Arthur Foster.CLOSE RUN THING: Hull Stingrays were edged out 6-4 by defending Cup champions Nottingham Panthers. Picture: Arthur Foster.
CLOSE RUN THING: Hull Stingrays were edged out 6-4 by defending Cup champions Nottingham Panthers. Picture: Arthur Foster.

But player-coach Sylvain Cloutier will still regard the weekend as a success after Saturday night’s 4-1 road win in the league at Fife Flyers, a result which brought the curtain down on a difficult week for the club following the sacking of Derek Campbell and which also ended a seven-game losing streak.

Stingrays went ahead in Fife with a powerplay marker from Omar Pacha at 4.34 before Jason Silverthorn struck at 10.36 and Jereme Tendler made it 3-0 at 17.10.

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Rok Pajic quickly pulled a goal back for the Flyers but Stingrays restored their three-goal cushion with another powerplay effort, from Guillaume Doucet at 36.26.

Cloutier and Doucet struck first period goals against Nottingham on Sunday night, cancelling out David Clarke’s ninth-minute opener before Chris Murray tied it up for the visitors with just 25 seconds of the period remaining.

Jonathan Weaver struck a 32nd-minute powerplay goal to give the Panthers the lead for a second time but, early in the third, Stingrays hit back with two of their own on the man advantage, first from Jereme Tendler at 40.40 and then from Carl Lauzon at 46.46, with Brandon Benedict’s 43rd-minute powerplay strike sandwiched in between.

But Hull were left to wake up on Monday morning rooted to the bottom of the Group B table after Bob Wren (53.08) and Clarke (57.54) sealed a seventh win in as many group games for the defending champions.

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““e let that one slip away,” said a rueful Cloutier afterwards. “But I thought our young British guys did a great job filling in.

“They buried their chances and we made a couple of mistakes on the PK, we fell asleep a little bit. But it is a game we could have had against one of the best teams.

“That would have given us a four-point weekend which would have been massive. But we won a big game in Fife and that was the main thing.”