Devils Vs Stingrays - Challenge Cup

12th Sep 2012 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Thursday night see’s the Devils make their first trip of the season to Hull to take on the Stingrays in the Challenge Cup. Having already dropped a game in the Cup the Stingrays will be keen to get a in on home ice to keep their cup chances alive.

Initially I just spent ages googling this and making bad jokes

Stingray, Stingray
Stingray, Stingray!

Anything can happen in the next half hour!

Stingray, Stingray
Stingray … Stingray … Sting-RAY!

But thats was just a bit silly so..

Looking at The Stingrays squad this year it seems that they are looking to build on last year which saw them make it to the play-offs last season, where the Panthers crushed them, achieve a 7th place league finish and snatch a surprise victory over the Steelers in the play-off semifinal to cap off an otherwise fairly disappointing season.

After a summer of uncertainty with concerns over the club changing hands, with one of the two new owners pulling out and a long wait on a decision over Ice time from Hull City Council, things finally worked themselves out and the Stingrays were confirmed as returning to the league.

The Stingrays roster has undergone a big rebuild over the summer after the departures of Sam McCluskey, Dan Scott, Bobby Chamberlain , Andy McKinney, Jack Watkins, Tristan Harper, Derek Campbell, Scott, McCluskey, James Pease, Martin Ondrej and Dmitri Rodin all leaving the club over the off season.

Upfront the Stingrays retained some key players from last season with top scorer Jereme Tendler returning joined by former Devil Jason Silverthorn and secondary scorer Dominic Osman. Joining them are Janis Ozolins who netted 55 goals in 52 games in the EPL last season and Canadian Cale Tanaka and Sylvain Cloutier playing upfront this rounds out the clubs import forwards.

The remainder of the forward line are made up by Matty Davies returning after a 26 point season, Chris Sykes signed from the Sheffield Steeldogs and forwards Andy Ward and Sam Towner on two-way deals to fill the remaining holes.

Defensively, only captain Kurtis Dulle returns from last season’s import defence joining him as Shane Lovdahl from the CHL, Tomas Valecko from the Edinburgh Capitals, Jeff Smith formerly of the Coventry Blaze and CHL enforcer Ryan Hand who may also play as a forward also adding defenseman Scott Robson on a two-way contract with the Stingrays NIHL side.

In nets Cloutier has signed 23 year old British prospect Ben Bowns following a number of good seasons in the EPL spending last season with the Steeldogs posting a 93% save percentage.

On paper, the Stingrays roster looks stronger in defence but the signing of Bowns in Nets may be a risky move, but could also pay really pay off for the Club in the long term Offensively where the Stingrays seemed to struggle last season the Rays look to me to be much the same as last season. The Stingrays should do well in the Northern conference but will struggle against the teams from the South in much the same way as they did last season.

The Stingrays played their opening Challenge cup game at the weekend on Saturday taking on the Nottingham Panthers who took an early lead Despite taking a two goal lead the Panthers allowed the home side to get back on level terms and only secured the win two goals with just over two minutes remaining in the game.

Scorers on the night for the Stingrays being Tomas Valecko & Jason Silverthorn and the final score was Hull Stingrays 2 – 4 Nottingham Panthers.

Speaking after the defeat forward Dominic Osman had this to say

 

"I don't think Nottingham were expecting us to play as well as that. We have a great team this year, better than last year and that was a positive."

Netminder Ben Bowns’ man-of-the-match display came as no surprise to player-coach Sylvain Cloutier in his first competitive start for Stingrays, Bowns made 40 saves.

Cloutier said: “We knew what Bownsy could do. He is a tall goalie and he stood tall against a very offensive Panthers side. He made some great saves and you couldn’t blame him for any of the goals. It was a very good performance but we know what Ben is capable of. Ben is going to play a big part for us this season and we have total confidence in him.”

The Stingrays expect to have Canadian forward Jereme Tendler back after injury while they are hoping the paperwork on American defenseman Shane Lovdahl’s visa application is completed in time or they will face the Devils two key players short.

The Devils come into the game off the back of a 3 point weekend winning away on Saturday in Sheffield before taking a game to Penalties on Sunday. The Devils had some stand out performances over the weekend with forward Mac Faulkner netting 3 goals on Sunday and taking two assists on Saturday, Phil Hill who had a goal and an Assist over the weekend.

We are doing our best to run the “ridiculousy childish and disgustingly biased” Match Night Live service for this games, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl if you'd like to help out by texting updates (we’d be happy to hear from you) or chip in with some comments on the night please contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com.

For details of upcoming away travel with Red Army Travel you can get all the information here http://the-inferno.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6212