Inferno Game Preview - Devils Vs Rays

7th Nov 2013 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Its just the one game for the Devils this week after last weekend’s hectic three games in four days as the Devils play hosts to the Hull Stingrays in the Big Blue tent on Sunday. This match will be the third meeting between the two clubs this season with the first meeting in the Challenge cup seeing the Devils take the win 3 – 4 away in Hull and the second meeting seeing the Devils edge Hull out on Penalties mid-week last week.

Speaking after game last week Hulls player coach Cloutier had this to say -

 "We were down all night but no-one gave up, no-one quit, we kept plugging away and we managed to pick up a huge point. Cardiff is a tough building to play and especially to come from behind. I felt we had some chances before we were three goals down but we competed all night.”

"Doucet was on tonight and he scored some nice goals. He is a shooter and everything he hit seemed to go in. We know he will score goals for us."

Since our last encounter with them the Stingrays have had a busy run facing the Blaze twice speaking before the first of the two games Cloutier had this to say about his teams upcoming games 

"Coventry are one of the better teams in the league, their line-up is built to win and they have players who can bury you."

"We will need to be extremely disciplined as they have a good powerplay and a lot of skilled players. They have a solid team and could be competing at the end of the year."

"We can't afford to fall asleep like we did last time as they will hurt you. We were in the game for 40 minutes. We need to make sure we compete for 60 minutes."

A four goal burst in the opening period turned out to be decisive for the hosts as they made it three straight league wins at home.

An early marker from Ashley Tait at 2.48 put the home side in front. A brace from Ryan Ginand 91 seconds apart at 8.07 and 9.38 gave the hosts a three goal lead. Kevin Harvey of the Blaze and Matt Sudderman were binned on 5 minute majors for fighting at 16.44, 15 seconds after this Tait with his second of the game gave the Blaze a 4 nil lead.

 
Two goals in as many minutes at the start of the second period from the visitors put a different slant on the game. A strike from Carl Lauzon at 23.07 and then Jereme Tendler with a shorthanded goal at 25.06 cut the deficit to a two goal lead for the Blaze. Despite the Stingrays having four powerplay opportunities after this they could not add to their goal tally.

The next goal was going to be important and it came for the host as Adam Henrich on the powerplay found the net at 52.31. With this being the only goal of the period the Blaze skated off with the points.
 
One key stat from this game was the Stingrays powerplay which was 0 for 8 on the night

Final Score  Coventry Blaze 5 – 2  Hull Stingrays

Speaking after the game Player-coach Sylvain Cloutier had this to say -

"We made a slow start and it cost us. We won the next two periods 2-1 but it was too late."

"It was the worst period we have played in the last three weeks, even in Cardiff when we were down we still played well.”

"Our powerplay has been clicking in the last five or six games but we were 0 & 8 tonight, we had a couple of five-on-three but it just didn't get going."

"That was not our team, we didn’t play well at all. We can't keep digging ourselves a hole. We now need to move on and focus on a massive game on Wednesday."

And a massive game on Wednesday was what they had, needing a regulation win to go through the Stingrays reversed the score line of Sundays game punishing an ill disciplined Blaze with 3 powerplay Goals from seven chances.

Both teams were in no mood to hang about but it was Blaze firing more shots than their opponents. However, slightly against the play it was Blaze who took the lead at 11.14 with a powerplay strike from Ryan Ginand. Blaze then hit penalty trouble of their own and while enjoying a 2-man advantage Stingrays leveled via the stick of Matt Davies at 16.11.

Period two saw the home side take the lead on a delayed penalty call with Jereme Tendler finding the net at 29.09 but Blaze were back on terms shortly afterwards when Ginand showed how deadly he is in front of goal by netting his second at 31.44.

An early third period goal for Stingrays was the perfect boost for them and it was Kyle Mariani on target at 44.27 on the powerplay who edged his side 3-2 ahead.  More penalty problems again cost the visitors at 51.25 as Stingrays counted their third powerplay goal of the night with Carl Lauzon giving his side a 2-goal advantage for the first time.

This proved too much for Blaze in the time remaining and despite ending the game on the powerplay and pulling Mike Zacharias it was Tendler who found the empty net for a fifth Stingrays goal and this ended the contest, booking Stingrays place in the last eight.

Final Score - Hull Stingrays 5 – 2  Coventry Blaze

For an in-depth look at the Stingrays line up we’d suggest that you check out the fairly excellent Chasing the Dragons blog season preview series here http://chasingthedragons.wordpress.com/2013/08/18/ten-teams-ten-days-4-hull-stingrays/

Also worth noting is that the Stingrays have been playing short-benched since forward Derek Campbell picked up a 47-game ban for fighting off the ice, attempted eye gouging, kneeing and excessive force to the head.

The ones to watch for the Stingrays this season look to be

Guillaume Doucet    13 Goals & 14 Assists,who seemed to have the measure of LaCosta in our last game netting four
Jereme Tendler       16 Goals  & 13 Assists
Jason Silverthorn    9 Goals & 113 Assists
Matthew Davies       4 Goals and 20 Assists

In nets the Stingrays have Ben Bowns who despite having a had a fairly unimpressive start looked handy enough last week against the Devils who’s Save percentage sits at 90.3% and now has a  3.80 Goals against average.

I can’t spot any mention of Hull having any Injuries but they face the Belfast Giants at home on Saturday before playing the Devils on the Sunday, so all manner of suspensions and injuries could be on the cards for the Stingrays. 

The Devils come into the weekends game short benched with Andrew Conboy serving the second game of his 12 game ban and still chasing the signature of a new import player. There is also still no word on Mark Smith who missed Sundays game against Belfast with an upper body injury.

Looking at Hull’s recent form they will be keen to get their season going and a short benched Devils has to be a good chance to get a win after last week’s game saw them take the Devils to penalties.  The Devils will need to play clever not take silly penalties and do all they can to shut down Guillaume Doucet  who really did have LaCosta’s number last outing.

You can catch us talking about this game, last weekend’s games in Belfast and the Conboy situation on Inferno TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqbJfhFlV7g&feature we also have the best ever Aled’s socks feature complete with extreme close up.

We will be running the “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” Match Night Live service for this game, expect name calling, slurs and one eyed bias and randomness in epic proportions, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl

We’ll be updating you live from the Inferno “News desk” at the rink 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 don’t forget that on Sunday if you can't make it down 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/ for a jolly reasonable £8