Stingrays bounce back to sink the Clan

The result made up for a 9-3 reverse at reigning Elite League champions Nottingham Panthers on Saturday.

Guillaume Doucet took the goalscoring honours at Hull Arena, netting twice against Braehead, who made it an opening weekend to forget for new head coach Ryan Finnerty after they suffered a 2-1 home defeat to Dundee Stars on Saturday.

Young defenceman Jamie Chilcott opened the scoring for Hull at 10.48, before Jereme Tendler doubled the lead at 28.28.

Two shorthanded goals in the space of less than a minute, the first from Doucet, the other from the returning Derek Campbell, then put the game beyond the reach of Braehead, Doucet adding a powerplay marker on 48.14. Kevin Bergin and Matt Towe found a way past Ben Bowns for the visitors in the third period.

Tendler scored twice in Nottingham on Saturday and, with Jason Silverthorn scoring a third, Hull were in the game at the end of the second period as they trailed the Panthers 4-3. But five third-period strikes from Corey Neilson’s side saw Sylvain Cloutier’s side return from the National Ice Centre empty handed.

“Sunday was a big win for us, particularly with it being in our conference too,” said Cloutier.

“We wanted to bounce back from Nottingham and we managed to do that.

“You need to be strong at home and win your home games and we will need to win a few on the road up in Scotland too. At the end of the season these points make a difference, you saw that last year by how close we were to winning the conference.

“We needed Bownsy to have a big game and he did. He made some big saves. We have all the confidence in the world in him, we know what he is capable off.”

Sheffield Steelers had a mixed weekend under new coach Doug Christiansen in the Challenge Cup, beating Coventry Blaze 4-2 on the road on Saturday before going down 4-1 at home in an early-season clash with arch-rivals Nottingham.

Jonathan Phillips, Danny Meyers, Stefan Meyer and Jeff Legue were on target at the Skydome Arena, Legue’s shorthanded goal at 45.34 giving the Steelers some welcome breathing space after Ryan Ginand and Adam Henrich – whose line Christiansen had singled out as a major threat before the game - pulled the Blaze back to within one of the visitors.

On Sunday back on home ice, Matt Francis scored the only goal of the first period for the Panthers before Stevie Lee doubled the advantage six minutes into the second.

Jonathan Phillips halved the deficit on the powerplay with Brandon Benedict in the box for interference but, after Craig Kowalski saved from Maxime Lacroix on a breakaway, the momentum swung back in Nottingham’s favour and David Clarke restored the two-goal advantage shortly after.

With less than seven minutes remaining, Nottingham made sure of two Group B points when Francis found a way past Frank Doyle for the second time.

“It was an extremely disappointing night,” admitted Christiansen afterwards. “We had a great crowd, a great buzz when we came out onto the ice, we just didn’t play very well

“I told the players that I’ve seen them play five times and this was the only time I hadn’t seen them compete to the best of their ability.

“Our opponents played very well tonight. They took their chances well. We aren’t going to win many games when we only score one goal - we need to find offence from other places and we need to generate more.”