Devils V The Clan - 5/2/12

3rd Feb 2012 | Posted by Geriant Walters

This Sunday, the Devils take on the Braehead Clan at home in Cardiff. This will be the fifth meeting between the teams this year with the series currently at 2-2 after the Devils road win 3-2 in January.

The Clan are a great side this year with a trio of good goal scorers in Galbraith, Bayrack and Krestanovich and strong Secondary scorers in the likes of Wirll and Ryan Campbell, solid goal tending a decent defence and a wealth of experience in their line up and including ex NHL’er player coach Drew Bannister.

In Goal the Clan are admirably backstopped by Jaakko Suomalainen the 33 year old Finish player who joins the Clan having played last season with HK Jesenice in Austria. Suomalainen is no stranger to Glasgow, having played for the Paisley Pirates back in 2001/2002 in the BNL. He played 17 games for the Pirates before returning to Finland to finish the season in the Finland 3 league with Karhu Kissat. Jaakko has played in some of the top European leagues such as the Finland 3 and Finland 2 as well as the SM-Liiga.

Looking at their stats since the last meeting between the teams and their top 3 scorers are still in the top 15 overall. Updating them from last time we now have Jade Galbraith on 20 Goals 52 assists for 72 points, Mike Bayrack who's only played 34 games but has amassed an impressive 26 goals 32 assists for 58 points in them and Jordan Krestanovich on 24 Goals 25 Assists for 49 points.

The Devils will unfortunately still be without Mark Smith and Max Birbraer who is out for the remainder of the year after requiring surgery earlier in the week. There is also still some question over Brad Voth, who may or may not feature this weekend. This could mean after a league and challenge cup game in Belfast, we could see a few more young Brits ice giving us a chance to roll 4 lines when possible.

Braehead have been the busiest team in the league in the transfer window with 2 in, 2 out. Mike Wirll who we previewed ahead of the last encounter between the Devils and Clan has had a great start already with his new team. Notching 4pts in 4 games and giving them something extra in the forward department.

Another player brought in was Lee Mitchell from Dundee Stars. A young Brit with a good future ahead of him will be looking for regular ice time and so far, he's seen it. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

There has also been a departure from the Clan which came as a shock. #54 Kyle Bruce moved to Dundee.  It seems coach Bannister is going more for the skilled player type and wanted to lose the physical edge that Bruce bought. Bruce hasn't had the best start to the season so it may work out better for the Clan and better for the Stars. Also moved on is Vince Connon, who moved to the  Telford Tigers in the EPL after not securing enough ice time, which seems to be the right move for the young lad.

As always we'll be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased” Match Night Live service for these two game, providing we can get texters for the away game Saturday, at the usual location of www.theinferno.co.uk/mnl if you'd like to help out or chip in with some comments on the night please contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com. Should anything go wrong (which it shouldn’t) we will move over to Twitter for updates so follow us there on @InfernoMNL

And don’t forget if you’re looking for somewhere to have a pint and a bite to eat while the Devils are out of town the Pilot in Penarth is only a short trip away and has a great Hockey friendly atmosphere, directions to the pub can be found here - http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/where-to-eatdrink/