DOUG CHRISTIANSEN can now concentrate fully on securing an Elite League play-off slot following Edinburgh Capitals’ exit from the Knockout Cup at the hands of Newcastle Vipers.
The Murrayfield men won last night’s second-leg 2-1 to tie the quarter-final at 6-6 on aggregate but lost out 2-0 in a best-of-three penalty shoot-out in which Capitals failed to find the net.
The defeat was disappointing to the American playcalle
r who is desperate to land silverware for the home fans, but Edinburgh still hang on to the eighth and final play-off place. Rejuvenated Hull Stingrays are, however, closing the gap.
The Humberside men earned a point in a 4-3 overtime loss to Sheffield Steelers, the league pace-setters, on Saturday and edged rock-bottom Basingstoke Bison 4-3 at home last night.
Hull now have 20 points from 33 games while Bison have 18 from 34. Edinburgh have 23 from 33 games.
Edinburgh travel to Bison on Saturday before embarking on a tough four-game home sequence in which they entertain second-top Nottingham Panthers on Sunday, Coventry Blaze, the reigning league champions on Sunday, January 18, followed by a home double-header against runaway leaders Sheffield on January 24 and 25.
Following that, Capitals travel to Sheffield on January 31 before travelling home overnight to face Bison.
The transfer deadline closes this month and Christiansen will be desperate to hold on to his remaining players following the shock departure of teenage forward Iain Bowie. The Fife-born hit-man has joined Sheffield Scimitars, who play in the English Premier League. Christiansen disagrees with Bowie’s reason for quitting Capitals. The player cited lack of ice time but the club’s director of hockey argued that Bowie was a regular.
Christiansen had to reshuffle his lines again this weekend and he was pleased with the effort shown in last night’s tousy tussle at the Riversdale rink which ended with a fracas involving Vipers’ Derek Campbell. He had earlier been involved in a punch-up with Adam Stefishen, who was given a game misconduct for fighting.
Disappointingly, last night’s crowd was only half of Tuesday’s total of 1500 who watched Capitals edge a victory over Bison, but those who turned up saw an all-action game in which 89 sin bin minutes were logged, 47 by Capitals, of which Stefishen claimed 25 on his own. Derek Campbell collected 30 for Newcastle. Vipers went in front early, player/coach Rob Wilson netting with former Capitals sniper Jeff Hutchins supplying the killer pass.
However, it was slackness in Capitals’ rearguard which allowed Wilson a sight of home netminder Pasi Raitanen from the right wing and he buried the puck in the rigging.
Hutchins and Campbell combined in a neat move minutes after when Capitals were lucky to survive. Edinburgh’s defence then carelessly coughed up the puck in their own zone and Vipers failed to make them pay before Todd Griffith was denied on a one-on-one with Raitanen, the Finnish stopper saving point-blank.
The home side could have been dead and buried but they responded and Andrej Rajcak had a real chance on Newcastle netminder Andrew Verner’s glove side on a power play but failed to connect as Capitals upped the pace in search of an equaliser.
Defenceman Taylor Christie’s rasping slap shot then rebounded from the crossbar with Verner beaten and the puck landed up in the crowd.
Joe Dustin was next to test Vipers’ netminder with another shot but Verner kept his cool.
Christiansen then lost the puck behind Vipers’ net on a five-on-three play against Capitals leaving Raitanen to save the day after the rubber was transferred up the ice in double-quick time.
Tempers flared in the second period and Christiansen continued to change his lines in search of an equaliser. It arrived on the power play after 25 minutes. Mark Hurtubise proved why he is among the top points scorers in the league when he finished a move involving hard-working defenceman Sean Perkins and Kyle Horne to level.
Martin Cingel then tested Verner with another stinging shot but Capitals were unable to break through again until 66 seconds from time.
Christiansen pulled netminder Raitanen with 99 seconds remaining following a time out to give him six skaters and the playcaller bundled the puck home from close range to the relief of home fans after Hurtubise and Christie were involved in the move down the left wing.
The sides were still deadlocked after five minutes of sudden-death overtime and Vipers then struck. Hutchins netted the opening best-of-three penalty shot, going top shelf after Raitanen went down, but Cingel missed. Griffith then scored, again waiting for Capitals netminder to go down before slamming the puck high into the rigging. Perkins missed and that was that.
Capitals outshot Vipers 38-28 and Christiansen said: “We won the hockey game but lost the series. That’s disappointing but penalty shots are a lottery.
“We put ourselves in a good position after Saturday night’s game but our focus now is the league. Basingstoke is a massive game for us on Saturday and every game is critical.”
