Devils Vs Stingrays 1/11/12

29th Oct 2012 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Thursday night see’s the Devils in action against the Hull Stingrays. Both teams have shown fairly dismal form in the Challenge Cup this season taking just one win a piece from 6 games played and both currently sit on just 3 points. The means, I guess ?, that they both need a win to make the top four in the group and progress into the next round of the competition

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The Stingrays and Devils have met once already in the cup in a match that saw the Rays hand the Devils a defeat winning 7-5 back in September. The Rays will no doubt be keen to repeat this form for a full write up of that match you can check out a review here http://www.cardiffdevils.com/news/fixtures/hull-stingrays-vs-cardiff-devils/_

We took an “in depth” and only vaguely sarcastic look at the stingray squad in the run up to the last game which you can check out here http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/news/devils-vs-stingrays-challenge-cup/. The Stingrays have made just one change to their squad since this last meeting dropping defenseman Tomas Valecko and bringing back in last season’s Martin Ondrej which to my mind is swapping like for like really.

Last weekend say the Stingrays in action just once taking on the Fife Flyers at home in a game that saw the Flyers get off to a ‘flying’ start with a double from player/coach Todd Dutiaume at 2.04 and 6.43 firing them 2-0 ahead before Stingrays pulled one back from Janis Ozolins at 8.50. Flyers were then able to add a third via the stick of Steven Gunn at 18.02 and looked in control after twenty minutes of hockey.

The second period saw the Stingrays comeback begin and that started at 26.06 with a strike by Jereme Tendler. On the power play Dominic Osman then leveled the contest at 35.04 to leave everything top play for with a period remaining.

In the opening seconds of the third period a shorthanded strike by Tendler edged his side ahead for the first time and that’s the way it looked like staying until late drama firstly saw Casey Haines of Flyers make it 4-4 at 55.55 only to see Cloutier score what proved to be Stingrays game winner some 33 seconds later.

Final score Hull Stingrays 5 - 4 Fife Flyers

Scoring from the Stingrays has really picked up this season compared to previous years with newcomer Janis Ozolins leading the way on 10 goals and 9 assists in 15 games.

The 23 year old Latvian has made a smooth step up to the Elite league from the English Premier League outfit Sheffield Steeldogs where last season saw him pick up the EPL player of the year award, finishing the season with 92 points – including a remarkable 55 goals – from just 55 appearances.

Speaking on Ozolins form team mate Jason Silverthorn had this to say -

“Ozi has done a great job since coming in. You are never really sure how a guy is going to do once they have made the jump up from the EPL. But he’s a slippery little player and that makes him very effective and you can’t really ask for anymore from a kid that age. He’s just got that great knack of scoring goals which he also proved last season.”

Adding to the threat of Ozolins are the usual suspects for Hull of Jereme Tendler on 9 Goals and 6 assists, Jason Silverthorn on 4 goals and 9 Assists who are backed up by the likes of Matt Davies on 2 Goals 9 Assists, Cale Tanaka on 4 Goals 6 Assists and Dominic Osman on 7 Goals and 2 Assists. 

In nets Ben Bowns is doing a job for the Stingrays in net with a 89.5% save percentage and 3.72 Goals against average.

Hull will likely be missing British forward Andy Ward following the concussion he picked up during the recent 4-2 Challenge Cup defeat at Sheffield Steelers. 

Devils will be without Max Birbraer and Bench coach Neil Francis after Sunday’s clash with the Blaze see’s Max banned for 6 games and Franny also banned for one game for “fighting” with possible further disciplinary action to follow.

If you can't make the game on Thursday fear not as you can still keep up with the action as we'll be running the "Ridiculously childish" and "disgustingly biased" Match Night Live service for this game, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl

If you'd like to help out with texting updates we’d be happy to hear from you or if you'd like to chip in with some comments on the night please contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com