Devils Vs Blaze Saturday 10th March

Saturday night is hockey night in Cardiff this week as the Coventry Blaze come to town for the first of the two teams three clashes before the end of the season. This will be the sixth time the two teams have met this season with the series currently standing at 3 – 2 in favour of the Blaze. The Blaze have had less than a Stellar season and are currently residing in sixth position and it is however not outside the realms of possibility that there recent rally in forms will see them take fifth position in the league. So they could yet end up facing the Devils in the play-off Semifinals. 

Blaze coach Paul Thompson has had some less than complimentary things to say about his team this season and has already made a statement of intent for next season with the re-signing of the Blazes top point scorer Shea Guthrie, in front of last week’s fan forum, who has been one of the few stand-out players for the Blaze registering 70 points (25 goals and 45 assists) in 51 games.

Thompson said: “It’s great news we have been able to bring Shea back next season.”

“We have had a mediocre couple of seasons and we had to do a bit of work to show him we were committed to getting back to where we want to be.”

“I think Shea is one, if not the, most impact player I have seen and I have seen some very good players in my time. When Shea Guthrie is on his game he is nigh-on impossible to shut down.”

“We wanted to send a message not only to our fans but to the league that we mean business and want to get back challenging for trophies. By tying down one of the most impact players in the league we have done that and we want to build a strong team around him.”

Last weekend for the Blaze started with them coming off the back of a run of five straight losses and facing the Edinburgh Capitals who are on a worse run at 13 straight losses/
Neither team could find the net in the opening period for all there were 24 shots on goal. Hirsch in the Blaze goal turned away 10 shots whilst Craze at the other end turned away 14 shots.
The Blaze side finally managed to make the breakthrough with a goal from Russell Cowley just two minutes into the second. They then doubled their advantage with a strike from Robert Farmer not long after before adding a third via Matic Kralj just after the six minute mark. 
Blaze added a fourth with a strike from Owen Fussey at and the Capitals got themselves on the board with a goal from Jiri Hanzal at to round out the second period. 

The four goal advantage was restored with a second goal from Kralj at the half way mark of the third period. Less than two minutes later the visitors got a second goal from the stick of Bari McKenzie and added a third from Martin Petrina on the power play as a late consolation.

Final score Coventry Blaze 5 - 3 Edinburgh Capitals 

A good weekend for Blaze was completed by a second consecutive home win to move to a couple of points behind Braehead in the race for fifth spot in the standings. 

For a Panthers side who now look almost certain to finish third, this was their first loss in six but they well have had their eyes on Wednesday nights Challenge Cup Final 1st Leg in Belfast. 

Blaze wasted little time in taking the lead with a strike by Mike McLean but early penalty problems set the hosts back and Panthers levelled through Jordan Fox while on a 5 on 3 power play. Blaze came back and were next to score again in the first with a power play goal by Owen Fussey but Panthers had the last say in an entertaining session when Sami Ryhanen again scored on the power play with 16 seconds remaining. 

The second period was tighter and was shared. On a delayed penalty call Blaze went ahead for a third time, with Matic Kralj on target but soon afterwards we were tied again thanks to a Panthers strike by Matthew Myers. 

That’s the way it stayed right up until 48.25 when Blaze hit the front thanks to an effort by Kralj once more and the insurance for the home side came from Woo-Sang Park to give Blaze a four-point weekend.

Final score Coventry Blaze 5- 3 Nottingham Panthers 

Speaking after the weekends game Blaze D man Russ Cowley said: “The weekend was a confidence-booster for us. But it was not as if we had been playing terrible hockey. We had just been making mistakes at the wrong times which were costing us.

“But we had a good week of practice, we identified a few key areas we wanted to improve in and it paid off. It was a huge four points for us.”

Scoring for the Blaze has been lying in the main with Shea Guthrie on 70 points, Owen Fussey on 59 points and Matic Kralj on 56 points with secondary scoring coming from the likes of Robert Farmer on 45, Dustin Wood on 25 points (in 44 games) and Woo- Sang Park on 18 points ( 36 games). 

The Blaze are backed up in nets by Peter Hirsch currently ranked 5th in the league with a save percentage of 90.7% and a goals against average of 3.03. Hirsch can be a wall in nets but has also on occasion for the Blaze looked rattled and seems to lose his head if he’s scored on early. 

The two key to shutting down the Blaze this weekend clearly lies in shutting down Shea Guthrie and rattling Hirsch early, they will be keen to keep their run going and take another two points to draw them closer to the Clan and a semifinal berth against the Devil. The Blaze fans have been using the hash tag #Feedthefire on Twitter after last weekend so clearly it’s up to the Devils to put this fire out. 

We will be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased” Match Night Live service for this game, at the usual location ofhttp://www.theinferno.co.uk/mnl if you'd like to help out or chip in with some comments on the night please contact us atmatchnightlive@gmail.com. You can also follow on Twitter for updates on @InfernoMNL