A short benched Invicta Dynamos were crushed to a heavy defeat by EPL side Guilford Flames ahead of another crucial league game on Sunday against the Solent Devils.
With Billy and Charlie Phillips serving bans and Steve Osman announced as leaving the club hours before the game, Dynamos coach Kevin Parrish also had to contend with Grant Baxter, Mark Lee, Nicky Lewis, Callum Fowler and Andy Smith being absent. Arron Craft made his debut in the nets for Invicta.
Invicta Dynamos started the game in a lively fashion as Juraj Huska looked keen to bag his 100th Dynamos career goal within the first couple of minutes. Shortly afterwards fellow Slovakian import Michal Oravec shot into the side netting.
Guilford started to pile-on the pressure and their efforts were rewarded on 06:50 as Jozef Kohut scored unassisted, sliding the puck past Arron Craft despite the netminder’s best attempt to keep the puck out. Shortly afterwards it was two nil when the dominant Vladimir Kutny found Andrew Hemmings who in turn switched the play to Danny Meyers to fire the puck into the net.
Come 09:21 and it would be three nil, with Vladimir Kutny taking no prisoners to claim his first goal of the night. Juraj Huska tested the Flames goal once more but seconds later Andrew Hemmings pounced on a Kutny pass and made it four nil.
Michal Oravec missed a golden opportunity after fifteen minutes when clean through and that was to be punished on 17:47 when Andrew McKinney brought-up goal number five, assisted by Hemmings and Kutny.
The travelling Invicta fans finally had something to cheer on 20:18 when Captain Anthony Leone followed-up good work from Frankie Harvey to claim the first Invicta goal. The Invicta defence withstood more pressure for six minutes before Vladimir Kutny claimed his second goal of the night and the Flames sixth on 26:39.
Josef Kohut (31:24), David Longstaff (32:48) and David Savage (35:21) all scored before the end of the second period as the Dynamos went into the break with the scoreboard reading 9-1 in favour of the hosts.
The Dynamos worked determinedly hard throughout the third period and despite Flames goals from Ben Campbell (46:52) and Matt Towe (53:30) the Mo’s got reward on 56:08. Import Michal Oravec was sent racing clear and although his shot was well saved the racing Adam McNicoll was first on hand to score the last goal of the game.
Frankie Harvey went on the claim the man of the match awards for an Invicta Dynamos team that will be looking to bounce back on Sunday in their quest for league glory.