IT was a weekend of flip-flops in the Elite Ice Hockey League, with five teams seeing their fortunes turn around over the course of 24 hours.

There were two goal-filled games for the Edinburgh Capitals, who were thrashed in Fife before bouncing back with a gripping 7-5 victory over the Sheffield Steelers at Murrayfield.

The Flyers struck twice within the opening three minutes of Saturday’s Forth derby clash, adding a third before the intermission. A pair of goals for Edinburgh in the second period put them within one – a brief flicker of hope before Dingle netted his second of the game, a short-handed goal to put Fife ahead 4-2. A nice individual effort from Gerling late in the game gave the Caps their third, but it was little consolation with Fife registering an emphatic 8-3 victory to extend their three-game streak.

Edinburgh captain Paul Zanette, who was absent from Saturday’s game after being called up by the Italian national side, returned on Sunday to lift his club to their sixth straight home win, leading the way with a short-handed opening goal just four minutes in. A hat-trick for McCallum and a strong performance by goaltender Chubak helped the Caps secure the two points against mid-table Sheffield Steelers.

After their sensational win at home to the Caps, the Flyers travelled to Dundee with hopes of going four points ahead of the hosts in the Gardiner conference standings. It was not to be, however, and the Stars grabbed a 6-3 win, with Dickenson putting in a three-point performance. The result – a turnaround from their 4-2 defeat in Sheffield on Saturday – saw Dundee go top of the conference, on even points with Fife but with a game in hand.

Defending play-off champions Coventry Blaze were one of the exceptions over the weekend, failing to get a result in either meeting. Their 6-4 Challenge Cup loss to the Cardiff Devils on Sunday was, however, a four-goal improvement on the 6-0 drubbing delivered by Braehead the night before.

The Clan got things going early, with the horn sounding just 21 seconds in after Heywood streaked past a still-sleeping Blaze defence to set Davies up for a tap-in. Coventry were only outshot by two on the night, but netminder Chris Holt was a wall at the back, earning the shutout and allowing Braehead to end their three-game slump. The Blaze find themselves bottom of their conference and bottom of the league – but having played the fewest games of all league sides, their basement occupancy is probably temporary.

At the other end of the table, there was some positional jostling with the Nottingham Panthers jumping over league-leading Belfast Giants after a narrow back-and-forth battle between the sides – the Panthers winning 4-3 despite being outshot. Belfast remedied this with a win on Sunday in Manchester, edging out the Storm after nine rounds of shootouts and creeping back into the top position.

Looking ahead now, Saturday sees ex-Clan blue-line bruiser Zack Fitzgerald return to Braehead for the first time since signing for Sheffield earlier this year.

Dundee will host Edinburgh, with the Stars hoping for their first win in the season series and the Flyers will look to pick up a couple of points against the struggling Manchester Storm at the Fife Ice Arena.

On Sunday, the Flyers will nip over the Forth for a rematch against derby rivals Edinburgh, who will be desperate to extend that home-winning streak to an impressive seven games. Coventry will try to rediscover the scoring touch as they welcome Braehead to the Skydome Arena, and one of the EIHL’s oldest feuds goes another round in Sheffield as the Steelers look to narrow the gap between them and soaring Nottingham.