Devils Vs Blaze 25th September

22nd Sep 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Sunday night see’s the Devils in action in the Skydome in Coventry in a Challenge cup group game this will be the Devils second challenge cup game of the weekend after their game against the Stingrays Saturday. This will be the second time the two teams have met this year with Cardiff coming off the worse 7 -3 in a pre-season friendly on the first meeting.

Following possibly the worst season results wise for the Blaze certainly in the EIHL era and quite possibly ever this season’s recruitment looks to have had three key words in mind Youth, Desire and Hunger. Let’s take a quick look at the team Paul Thompson has put together for the 2011-2012 EIHL season.

There were quite a few departures from the Blaze ranks over the summer to many to list really but it appears that anyone who didn’t buy into the system or didn’t come up to expectations last season has gone. Add to this the retirements of Adam Calder and Matt Soderstrom’s move to the bench this season sees a very different look Blaze squad.

Upfront the Blaze has undergone a complete reimagining (much like what Tim Burton did with Planet of the Apes) Making sharp exits at the end of the season were Sean Selmser, Greg Chambers and Brad Cruickshank.

As the old guard left the key re-signings of sniper Owen Fussey and speedster Luke Fulghum were made early on. With these two in the bag the hunt was on for the right guys to fill out the roster with the keys being speed, youth and Hunger.

Joining Fussey and Fulghum and adding real depth is scoring is 25 year old Canadian Mike Mclean who was top point scorer for the Quad City Mallards last year in the CHL and has plenty of AHL experience with 33 games.

Next up Shea Guthrie at 23 years old who is a former 3rd round draft pick by the New York Islanders who spent the last few seasons in the ECHL racking up a reasonable number of goals a few seasons ago. Guthrie is noted for his speed being heralded as blisteringly fast.

Joining him is 28 year old Slovenian ex-Viper Matic Krajl who will along with Guthrie be expected to chip in with the blazes secondary scoring

Rounding out the new imports is tough guy Bryan Jurynec a 27-year-old Illinois native has spent the last three seasons with Kalamazoo Wings in the International Hockey League and ECHL. Apparently recommended to the Blaze by ex-team mates Ben Simon and Jason Robinson.

The Blazes British forwards are led by stalwart Greg Owen who returns for a third term also staying on from last season are Brit youngsters Farmer, Nell and Ross Venus.

Speaking about building the team and his offence for this year coach Paul Thompson had this to say

“I build different teams for different leagues and I think this year the league is more mobile”

“If you are an opposition defenseman and you have Shea Guthrie and Luke Fulghum coming at you on different lines it’s not going to be an easy night”

The blazes Defensive core fared no better than the forwards with huge changes taking place gone are; Brian Lee, Jeff Smith and Brad Zanon add to this the retirements of Jason Robinson and the move to the bench as assistant coach of Matt Soderstrom. Clearly Thompson had a lot of work to do rebuilding a D that didnt work last season.

Blaze veteran Russ Cowley remains on D in his 10th season with the club after showing talent whilst covering the position last season as injury cover. Jonathan Weaver also returns for his 5th season with the Blaze 

First of the new faces is 26 year old  John Gordon, a 6’ 3’’ 218lb Canadian D-man who’s  played the past few seasons  in Holland for the Hauge Club who is described as a Power-Play specialist.Joining him and Former Stingray and Giant Davey Phillips joins the Blaze following a successful few years in the ECHL and AHL.

Two further new editions to the D are James Griffith from the Swindon Wildcats, and former Steeler & Viper Jerramie Domish, a fast skating championship winning D man who will provide much needed transitional support and back up for Weaver and Cowley.

Last season’s goalie Brett Jaeger, decided to move on following a season he’d no doubt rather forget where he was largely hung out to dry by his defense and to be fair to him if he had had a better team in front of him his stats would have been better than they were. Returning is the former Blaze nettie  Peter Hirsch who was with the Blaze for a league win and will no doubt be keen to prove himself after a poor season last season.

Speaking in the press this week Coach Paul Thompson had this to say about his teams start to the season’s campaign.

 “Last season we started the league losing the first four games. This year we’ve won the first four."

“We know we have to test ourselves against the big teams but the wins have given us confidence and that plays a big part.”

Of course when he says won the first 4 he’s excluding the Challenge cup game where Nottingham beat Coventry even more convincingly that they beat us in a 10-1 drubbing.

We'll be running Match Night Live for this game from 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 spend the game with other hockey fans the Pilot in Penarth will be showing the match, on the big screen, and will be offering discount bar meals before the game and will be open afterwards for post-match drinks, directions to the pub can be found here - http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/where-to-eatdrink/