Devils Vs Blaze - Xmas Double Header

24th Dec 2013 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

This year’s festive games see’s the Devils take on the Coventry Blaze away in Coventry on Boxing day and at home on the Saturday 28th , Please excuse our somewhat Brief preview but I’d like to get off and have a beer. I don’t know about you but it feels like we see the Blaze play next to constantly so you probably know what to expect already.

The Blaze had well a “Stinker” last weekend starting on Saturday away to the Giants where the game was in the balance until the third period when the home side netted three to give them the win.

The Giants opened the scoring with a strike from Chris Higgins at 7.28. They were pegged back within a minute as Ryan Ginand with a powerplay goal had the visitors level at 8.12. The home side edged themselves back in front with a powerplay strike at 14.43 from the stick of Jeffery Swez.

In a close fought session in the second stanza neither team could score and the period ended goalless for the Giants to maintain their one goal lead.

A double strike from the hosts by the 45 minute gave them some breathing space. A goal from Robby Sandrock on the powerplay at 42.43 was followed by a strike from Darryl Lloyd at 44.54. The game was over as a contest when Lloyd netted his second of the game at 58.47. 

Final Score Belfast Giants 5 - 1 Coventry Blaze
 
Sunday the Blaze went down to their second defeat over the weekend as they lost 4-2 to Braehead Clan at the Skydome Goals from Neil Trimm (12.48) and Ed McGrane (14.55) saw Blaze trailing 2-0 at the end of the first period.

In the 2nd Period Cale Tanaka cut the deficit at 26.54. But powerplay markers from Trimm (29.52) and Shane Lust (37.57) stretched Clan's lead to 4-1 and although Ryan Ginand grabbed a goal back at 47.20, Blaze could not force a comeback.

Final Score Coventry Blaze 2  - 4 Braehead Clan

Coach Matt Soderstrom said: "It has been a disappointing weekend. We did all the little things right last week against Sheffield but we have not been able to produce that again this weekend."

"We wanted to go into Christmas with a win but we didn’t manage to do that. Now we need to get back to a 60-minute performance against Cardiff."

The ones to watch for the Blaze look to be

Ryan Ginand on 27 Goals and 50 points for the season so far

Adam Henrich on 12 Goals and 39 points

Ashley Tait on 10 Goals and 27 points

Michael Heinrich on 8 Goals and 25 points

In Nets the Blaze are well backed up by Mike Zacharias with a save percentage of 91% and a goals against average of 3.24.

We will be running the “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” “ Pantomime Script” that is our Match Night Live service for both of these games, expect name calling, slurs and one eyed bias in epic proportions, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl

OJ will be hosting and on Boxing day we’ll be updating you live from the Inferno “News desk” at the rink on Saturday thanks to the great guys at Analysis Technologies. If you’d like to chip in with a comment or make a score prediction you can contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com.

Also if you can't make it down to the game on Saturday and you don't want to miss any of the action and reading the game isn’t enough you can get the game on Devils live TV here  http://www.cardiffdevils.com/ ( Make sure your Apple product is updated and use Firefox we’d suggest) for a jolly reasonable £8.