DEESIDE DRAGONS made a welcome return to winning ways with their success at Sheffield Scimitars.
Heading into the match after four consecutive losses, Deeside prevailed 11-4.
Dragons peppered the Sheffield goal with 25 shots in the first period as opposed to just five on Ryan Wardell at the other end.
Colin Cromie opened the scoring on 11 minutes and James Parsons doubled the lead two minutes later.
Sheffield seemed to perk up in the second period and had much more of the play. Two quick goals of their own within 50 seconds of each other saw them draw level but Theo Malone edged the Dragons back in front on 25 minutes.
Sheffield equalised again and Malone scored once more to keep Deeside in front, and the Dragons upped their game by another gear after this. Two goals followed from Jake Witkowski and one each from Jared Dickinson and Noah Percival to open up an 8-3 lead heading into the second interval
A shorthanded goal from Ross Kennedy just 19 seconds into the third period further extended the Deeside lead and, while Sheffield pulled a goal back on 49 minutes, they never really looked like catching the Dragons.
Malone completed his maiden senior hat-trick 52 seconds from the restart and Ethan Mayoh rounded off the scoring for the game on 55 minutes to secure a much-needed victory for Deeside.
The weekend results mean that the Dragons move up into sixth place in the Moralee Division table with 15 points from nine league games.
Other results: Billingham 5 Nottingham 0; Solihull 2 Blackburn 8; Widnes 8 Leeds 1; Billingham 4 Telford 5; Hull 7 Widnes 5; Blackburn 9 Nottingham 2.
Deeside Dragons Seconds narrowly lost to Nottingham Lions in a dramatic penalty shoot-out after having drawn 6-6 in regulation time.
The game started well for the Dragons with goals from Gary Dixon and Charlie Spridgeon.
Nottingham levelled with two quick goals of their own at the start of the second period but Cameron Kushnirenko edged Deeside back in front with a goal on 31 minutes.
The Lions equalised just 38 seconds later and the game remained on a knife edge at 3-3 at the second interval.
Two more Nottingham goals at the start of the third period put the visitors back in front but Deeside heads did not drop and an amazing spell of three goals within the space of 52 seconds – from Liam Yarwood, Spridgeon again and Lucas Betts – propelled them into a 6-5 lead.
With just one minute left to play, Nottingham removed their netminder in favour of an extra attacker to try and force a late equaliser. Deeside had a number of attempts on the empty Lions goal – hitting the post twice – but they were unable to score.
Just when it looked like Dragons were going to claim a win after six straight defeats, Nottingham snatched the equaliser with just 18 seconds left.
This sent the game into an extra five minutes of sudden death three-on-three overtime but the stalemate remained, leading to a penalty shoot-out. It was 1-1 after three attempts – with Parsons converting for Deeside – but Nottingham took the win in the first round of sudden death shots.
The Lions receive two league points and Deeside get one point for having been level at the end of regulation time.
Mark Norman was named MVP for the Dragons and netminder Jake Lowndes was named hardest worker by his fellow players.
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