Murrayfield Racers take their time to get their claws into Dundee Tigers

It was a highly-charged encounter at Murrayfield, with Racers left frustrated at times. Picture: Ian Coyle

Racers trailed after just 90 seconds, Grant Reekie, with a well-taken back-hand effort giving Tigers, who have won just two games this season, the lead, and despite two goals 20 seconds apart in the 11th minute from Rihards Grigors and Michael Ireland giving Racers a 2-1 lead at the end of the first period, assistant coach Jock Hay was far form happy.

“We played the first two periods at half pace,” said Hay. “I think our guys thought it was going to be easy, and we tried to warn them of that before the game. It’s always easier to start a game in a high-gear and wind it down if you can, than to start sluggish and force yourself to try and pick things up, which turned out to be the case. It was tough going at times, and it was all of our own making.

“We had a lot of shots (on target) but they weren’t good shots because we didn’t have the build-up play to go with it – we weren’t passing and moving – which is what you need to do if you want to create really good scoring opportunities. We changed that in the third period and we were a lot better. It was a good win in the end.”

Racers completely dominated the second period firing 25 shots on Tigers netminder Dale Shearer, scoring twice through Sean Donaldson and Dean Walker to go 4-1 ahead, before Racers, with some slack play in their own zone, gifted Tigers a rare chance in the 33rd minute that was well finished by Reekie for his second goal of the game.

Racers’ pressure on the Tigers goal did not let up in the third period, and their dominance on the ice began to tell on the scoreboard with Grigors, Walker and Ireland all grabbing their second goals of the game to round off a comfortable 7-2 win.