It was a marginal league defeat for the Invicta Dynamos on their travels to play the London Raiders.
Coach Kevin Parrish had to make do without a number of skaters including defencemen Arran Strawson, Ryan Morgan, George Hoang and forward Josh Condren.
Making his debut was one-time London Raider Ross Connolly. Any pre-match plans were disrupted early on due to the kit arriving late leaving the Mos barely a couple of minutes to warm-up, but on the plus side, the hosts were missing key forward Juraj Huska.
The first period started with the Dynamos pressing the Raiders from the puck drop with Louis Colvin registering the first shot of the game with netminder Gray got down well to save.
Pressure only really switched to the other end when the Mos were defending Steve Osman’s hooking penalty. When the Mos returned to full strength Ondrej Zosiak found himself venturing into the Raiders half of the pad and when he hit the puck towards goal Alan Lack took his shot straight into his face and played no further part in the game.
Mason Webster and Jaroslav Cesky both went close for Invicta as the visitors looked to strike the first goal of the evening. A major talking point came in the 17th minute – debutant Ross Connolly checking Raiders Brandon Ayliffe near to the Dynamos’ net and referee Stephenson deeming it to be high sticks and a match penalty which was later reduced to game.
With the Mos now defending a 5 minute penalty the expectation was for the Raiders to creep ahead but all hopes were restricted when Matt Turner got penalised for holding leaving both teams with 4 skaters each on the ice.
Within a minute of the reduced number of players on the ice the Mos went ahead – Tommy Ralph finding Jaroslav Cesky in space who in turn cut a deadly pass to Ashley Jackson who fired beyond Gray for 1-0 on 19:11.
The second period was a tighter affair with both sides canceling each other out time after time. The Dynamos were forced to play forward Scott Bailey in defence due to only having 3 recognised defencemen left.
Despite looking tight at the back the Kent side’s resilience was finally broken when the Raiders did get the scores level in the 25th minute – Jake Sylvester producing a save out of Damien King but when the puck rebounded back out Sylvester couldn’t miss and the scoreboard quickly displayed 1-1.
Ashley Jackson, Callum Fowler and Louis Colvin all had opportunities in the period but Gray was equal to anything thrown at him to set-up a tense 3rd period.
The final period started with an early goal for the Raiders – Brendon Ayliffe dispatching past King in the 42nd minute to give the hosts a 2-1 lead.
A few minutes later Kevin Parrish called a timeout which rallied his troops to force more pressure in the Raiders zone – chances falling to Jackson and Mason Webster but both forwards guilty of missing the target.
With the game closing out Damien King was pulled from his net with the Mos opting for an extra forward – but the gamble didn’t pay off with Marek Nahlik scoring in the empty net on 59:59 to hand the Raiders a 3-1 victory and maintain their 100% win record against the Dynamos this season.
Man of the match awards went to Invicta netminder Damien King and Raiders forward Brendon Ayliffe.