Devils Vs Giants 25th Jan

24th Jan 2012 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

The Belfast Giants come to town on Wednesday for the first leg of the Challenge cup Semi-final. The Giants have had a great run this year in the Big Blue tent winning all of their games in Cardiff so far this season, something that the Devils will be keen to put to an end in the first of the two Semi Final Games.  The Devils have called for the fans to Red out the rink as they look to show the Giants that #Thisistheyear (the Giants ever present smug Twitter tag) they don’t win the Challenge Cup.

The Devils have met the Giants five times this year coming away victorious on only one occasion, with a win in Belfast by the narrowest of Margins in a 1-2 road win.

Last weekend the Giants were in action in back to back home games first off against the Edinburgh Capitals where they moved 9 points clear in the league and extended their unbeaten run to six games with a Comfortable victory,  The Giants were first on the board when Jeff Mason scored after early in the first but despite the Capitals mustering only a couple of shots on target in the opening period they managed to equalize with a strike from Rene Jarolin at the half way point of the period.

The Giants effectively sealed the game early in the second scoring three times in under four minutes. Goals from Mark Garside , Darryl Lloyd on the power play and Aaron Clarke had the hosts 4-1 ahead.

The third period saw more scoring late in the game from Giant Robert Dowd and then a late consolation goal for the Capitals from Iain Bowie and finally Dowd again on the power play to seal a crushing win.

One point of note is who badly the Capitals really struggled to get through the solid Giant defence and managed only eleven shots on goal during the full sixty minutes.

Belfast Giants 6 - 2 Edinburgh Capitals

It feel to the Nottingham Panthers to end  Belfast’s winning run on Saturday night. The Panthers set the tone early when Sammi Ryhanan scored his first goal for the Panthers at just after a minute into the game. The Giants were back on level terms two minutes later with a strike from Adam Keefe. With 3 seconds left on the clock in the first period, David Clarke with a powerplay goal put the Panthers back in front.

The second period saw the Giants forwards frustrated as their 17 shots on Kowalski in the Panthers net were all turned away  Whilst at the other end the Panthers offence only managed 8 shots but put one of them away as Danny Meyers gave his team a two-goal late in the period.

The third period remained scoreless until nine minutes from the end  as Craig Peacock converted with a powerplay goal to make it a one-goal game. The Giants called a time out at 58.50 but it took them until 59.54 before they could pull goaltender Murphy and by that time it was too late.

Final score Belfast Giants 2 - 3 Nottingham Panthers

Speaking after the defeat to the  Panthers coach Doug Christiansen had this to say.

“We made critical errors, if you do that against good teams you expect they will punish you and Nottingham did,”

"We did have chances, but we didn’t take them and in the end we didn’t play well enough to overcome Nottingham”

“We have guys who we need to have an impact in our big games and our big moments.”

Looking at the Giants Roster for the game.. your guess is as good as mine really, regardless of injuries and people leaving they will ice a full complement of imports. I looked to Giants fans for the inside line on who’d play and who wouldn’t and came away more than a bit confused. “GGiant” on the Inferno provided

“(Paul)Deniset our newest import missed that game so (George)Awada played but if he has recovered both will play, Hutchinson is also a possibility to return from a concussion injury, we need the likes of Pelle and Clarke to deliver and Dowd Peacock and Garside to continue on their fine form this season.”

While the Kingdom of the Giants provided -

“The Giants themselves have tried to replace the loss of Benoit Doucet, to injury, and Brock McBride, to Austria, by bringing back a former player of their own. Paul Deniset was a revelation during his first stint in teal, notably scoring 3 hat tricks in 3 trips to Altrincham Ice Rink against the Manchester Phoenix. But the Canadian centre will be looked upon by fans as a means to creative play. Those who remember his first time on Odyssey ice will hope he has more of the same to offer. “

The key points there being there are lots of them and they will be various means have a full bench. Please don’t interpret this as me being “bitter” or “ Jealous “ as it’s not that, make it more “ Bemused” and  “Confused” and also amazed that they’ve managed to sign so effectively under the wage cap.

The Giants roster when its firing comes with a  good deal of Scoring depth with Craig Peacock leading the way of 44 points,  back up by the always dangerous Jon Pelle on 39 points, former Steeler Robert Dowd also a huge contributor on 38 points and they are amply backed up by newcomer Aaron Clarke and the likes of  Jeremy Rebek , Adam Keefe and Jeff Mason on Defence plus many more in the cast of many.

The Devils roster couldn’t be more in Stark Contrast to the Giants “luxury” roster if they’d tried with the Devils currently missing power forwards Max Birbraer and Brad Voth and defence man Mark Smith  through injury the Devils will be short benched going into this match. There is a small Chance that Brad Voth will rejoin the squad but his recovery is still being assessed.

Last weekend against the Braehead Clan the Devils forward lines were  Hill, MacRae and Pierce /  Dobben, Matzka, Smith  /   Burrows, Davies, Adams with Luke Piggott as the tenth forward.  We can only assume that this will be the case again.
The Devils have earned nine points from a possible 10 in their last five Elite League matches and four of those were wins in Scotland – against Dundee, Fife, Edinburgh and Braehead.
In preparation for this game Player Coach Gerard Adams had this to say
“Belfast didn’t think they would have to come back here,”
“We have been looking forward to getting Belfast back in Cardiff Bay one more time this season.”

 As always we'll be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased” Match Night Live service 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/