Saturday evening saw an early faceoff in the IIHL with the Dublin Rams hosting the Flyers I.H.C. This was the second meeting of these teams with the Rams coming out on top last time winning 8-1. Last time around both teams were missing some key players and it was the same for this game as suspensions had hit both teams so the benches were short.
The action got underway at 3:45 p.m. at a fast pace with both teams sizing each other up in the first few minutes. The Rams dominated those early 2 minutes with the Flyers doing a lot of chasing the puck. However, things evened out after this and the play was mainly concentrated in the neutral zone. The Flyers did miss an opportunity to score on the powerplay when Brandon Chalazan went to the box for slashing and they will probably rue not even setting up in the Rams zone. Dean Kelly of the Flyers was next in the box for tripping but the Rams also failed to score after some nice saves by Seanna Conway in goal for the Flyers. Oddly enough it was after this when the teams were even that the Rams opened the scoring at the 12:20 mark from Chalazan with assists from Hearn and Cuskeran. Willy Morrison then added the Rams second and third goals in the space of four minutes before the period’s end. First period ended Rams 3-0 Flyers.
Things went from bad to worse for the Flyers in the second period. They stared the period with a two man advantage as the Rams had both Brent Trull, for charging, and Stevie Hamill, for interference, in the box. However, the Rams’ penalty killing unit did extremely well and they prevented the Flyers from even setting up the powerplay. This hard work was then rewarded with thirty six seconds left on Hamill’s penalty when Brad Heraghty put the puck in the back of the net for a short handed marker. The score was now 4-0 to the Rams and the Flyers were already dropping their heads. The Rams then added a fifth goal at the 5:09 mark of the period with Morrison netting his hat-trick. Matt Hearn then added the sixth goal on the powerplay with assists going to Chalazan and O’Driscoll. This was followed by Cuskeran getting his first of the game at the 13:19 mark of the game to finish the period scoring. Second period ended Rams 7-0 Flyers.
The third period started in the same fashion as the second with the Rams coming out all guns blazing. Tomas Kuzma started the period scoring with a nice individual effort, although his celebration afterwards wasn’t necessarily in the greatest taste for a team who were now leading by eight goals. The Rams added five more goals in the final period with Hamill, Moriarty, Chalazan, Morrison and Cuskeran all hitting the target. The Flyers did pull one back though and prevented the shutout effort by Sean Gibson. Philip Darcy’s shot from the point was deflected past the unsuspecting Gibson to give the Flyer their only mark.
It was a rather clean game with the Rams only going to the box six times and the Flyers only visiting five times. The shots on goal were so close and really demonstrate how much the Rams dominated the Flyers. The Rams had 65 shots on goal with Conway making 52 saves. Gibson on the other hand had a rather quiet night as the Flyer were only able to muster together 19 shots. Gibson stopped 18 of those shots.
PIM Rams 12-10 Flyers
SOG Rams 65-19 Flyers
Final Score Rams 13-1 Flyers.