Game Preview - Devils Vs Blaze

29th Jan 2013 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Thursday night sees the Devils in action at home to the Coventry Blaze. This will be the eighth meeting between the two teams with the score line currently standing in favour of the Blaze 4 – 3. In the league standings the Blaze currently sit four points behind the Devils in Fifth so they will be keen to take this win to stop the Devils from extending their lead.

We took a look at the blaze squad at the start of the season which you can check out here http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/news/devils-vs-blaze-29th-september-730pm-face-off/ since then they’ve seem Gerome Giudice move on and have had Matt Belesky come and go and have seen the addition of Mike Bayrack and latest arrival forward Adam Henrich.

Henrich the 29-year-old Ontario native, a second-round draft pick by Tampa Bay Lightning in 2002, has been playing in Germany for SC Riessersee this season and is a  former Canada Under-18 international and has previously won a championship in Italy with Asiago in 2010/11.

Henrich said: “I am really excited to be here and when I heard this was going to be my first game I was pretty pumped. I am looking forward to helping them try and make the semi-finals. The guys are excited and all believe we can do it.”

Coach Paul Thompson is hoping his arrival can help kick-start their offence and Henrich is keen to oblige.

He added: “Any team in any league goes through ups and downs, have injuries and have streaks – it is part of the game. But we have a good team here and a good bunch of guys. They need to just get something going. We need to get to the areas around the net and shoot more and that is something I will be looking to do.”

“We have brought in Adam and he is a quality player. He practised with us last night and he looked very good – and very big! We will be relying on him to get us going offensively and I expect him to give everyone a lift.”

Defenceman  Egener had this to say of the Heinrich signing  “Henny is a big, tall forward, with good hands and a good shot. He will give us what we have been lacking in front of the net."

“He goes to the gritty areas, he will put points up for us and he has been known to drop the mitts. He is not afraid of playing physical."
"He is a good team-mate. I have played with him for five or six years in my pro career for a bunch of different teams."

“There was a possibility of getting him earlier in the year but things did not work out. Thommo talked to me about him before and I gave him my feedback. I am really excited to have him on board.”

Last weekend saw the Blaze in action just once against the Nottingham Panthers.

After the first period ended goalless, no one was to know what was in store. The visitors went in front with a strike from Dustin Cameron at 22.37. They doubled their lead as Greg Leeb netted at 30.16.  Matthew Myers pulled one back for the league leaders at 34.25 and then two goals in 69 seconds turned the game around as David Clarke restored equality at  38.26 and then ex-Blaze man Jonathan Weaver put them in front at 39.35.

The goals just kept coming in the third period, Clarke got his second at 43.30 and then the Blaze got their third and last goal at 48.45 from Mike Egner. They had little time to celebrate this goal as Bruce Graham got Panthers fifth 11 seconds later. They then went on to add another two 18 seconds apart, the first of these came at 50.01 from Matt Francis and then Pat Galivan made it 7-3 at 50.19. At 56.36 David Clarke netted his hat trick as he completed the scoring.

Nottingham Panthers 8 -3 Coventry Blaze

Coach Paul Thompson said: “I am really disappointed with the way we capitulated in the third period.

“We weathered the storm in the first period and apart from the last three minutes I thought we were the better team in the second period."

“But we don’t just concede a goal, we concede them in bunches. We are switching off. It was men against boys in the third period."

“We started feeling sorry for ourselves and we just quit mentally. They were just watching and they stopped competing. Our application has to be better.”

Looking at the season so far we can see the ones to watch for both teams are as follows

Blaze key scorers on the Devils 

Dustin Cameron 4
Shea Guthrie 4
Greg Leeb 2
Mike Schutte 2

Devils key scorers on the Blaze

Stuart MacRae 4
Chris Blight 3
Max Birbraer 3
Ben Davies 2

The Devils had a tough weekend last weekend narrowly losing to Sheffield on Saturday and Nottingham on Sunday. You can check out write up’s of both games here http://theworldofsportbyateengirl.blogspot.co.uk/

We will be running the “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” Match Night Live service for these games, expect name calling and one eyed bias in epic proportions, 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