Rays keep play-off hopes alive

Rays captain Jeff Glowa has scored 33 goals this season

A penalty-shot winner from captain Jeff Glowa kept Hull Stingrays' slim play-off hopes alive as Hull win 6-5 at Manchester in the Elite League.

With two games left in the regular season the Rays must win both and hope Edinburgh lose at home to the Phoenix.

Coach Rick Strachan believes their season will go down to the wire.

"We haven't done anything easy all year so why start now. We live to fight another day and who knows what will happen," he told BBC Radio Humberside.

Stingrays got a perfect start in Thursday night's game as goals from Pavel Gomenyuk on the powerplay and Lee Esders saw them go 2-0 ahead within four minutes.

But the Elite League's leading points-scorer David-Alexandre Beauregard then pulled Phoenix back into the game with a powerplay strike before the end of the first period.

Konstantin Kalmikov then put Stingrays two goals ahead again in the 23rd minute but Phoenix responded by scoring three goals, one from Lucas Burnett and an Adam Walker double, in the next eight minutes to lead 4-3. Kalmikov levelled the score a minute later.

Bruce Mulherin put the home side ahead again in the 45th minute but Hull responded when skipper Jeff Glowa fired home seven minutes later.

Neither side could force a winner in overtime but after each side scored three times in the shootout, Glowa fired in the Stingrays' winner.

If Stingrays win their next game, against Cardiff on Saturday, it could mean their final game, against Edinburgh the following day, determines who will make the play-offs.