Match Perview - Devils Vs Flyers 27th November

24th Nov 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

The Devils take on the Fife Flyers at home in Cardiff Bay in their only game this weekend on Sunday, the will be the Flyers first trip to the Welsh Capital since 2005 with their last trip down in an EIHL / BNL crossover resulting in an 11- 2 drubbing for the visiting side, fingers crossed we will see another score line like this Sunday.

It’s been a rough transition into the league for newcomers the Fife Flyers they have clocked up just two wins so far this season, one league win (out of 17 played) and one in the challenge cup ( out of six played). Fife’s league win recently over the Hull Stingrays being the only glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak start to the year.

Captain Danny Stewart had this to say after the clubs first league win.

"We played well, and although we hit some penalty trouble and a lost a lead with a couple of mistakes, we battled back to get a late one and win the game. With what's gone on it would have been easy for us to get down after we trailed 4-3 and have that losing mentality, but we kept going and Matt Cohen made a great play to Matt Siddall who tied the game late on."

"It is an important step, and although we have a long way to go before we can pull results every night, it proved to everyone, and more importantly ourselves, that we can win if we play together."

Unfortunately for the Flyers they didn’t manage to get a winning streak going and last weekend saw them handed a pair of defeats, first up on Saturday against the Belfast Giants.

The Flyers got off to a good start going one goal up early on with a strike from Matt Siddall in the opening minutes but didn’t manage to hold onto the lead into the second after weathering a storm of shots Craig Peacock equalized late in the period.

The second period saw the Flyers return to form and the Giants offence pressured their goal with another 20 shots of which the Giants managed to convert just one with a shorthanded strike from Darryl Lloyd.

Fife goalie Zemlak once again faced a barrage of shots in the third period 26 in total and in the process gave up five goals. The first of these came at from Jon Pelle Then they gave up three goals in just over a minute the first of these came at on the power play from Jeremy Rebek and then just 25 seconds later Adam Keefe made it 5-1.

Pelle got his second goal of the game at not long after and completed his hat trick on the power play at 54.52.
Final score for Flyers 1 – 7 Giants in a game that saw Fife Goalie Garret Zemlak face 65 shots.

Sunday saw the Flyers take on the Hull Stingrays. In an opening period that saw a shot count of 21 to 6 the Flyers net minder Zelmak was yet again keeping the Flyers in a game.

The second period looked to be heading the same way until the Stingrays found a goal from Dominic Osman just before the half way mark. The Flyers came back with a goal from Matt Siddall towards the end of the period to tie it at one.

Zemlak continued to deny increasingly desperate efforts from the home side but he was beaten at 52.34 when Jason Silverthorn fired home on the power play and when Tendler added a third just over a minute later it was all over.

Flyers did give themselves a glimmer when Danny Stewart scored on the power play at late in the third but despite pulling Zemlak there was no comeback on the cards.

Final score Hull 3 – 2 Flyers and yet again the Flyers goalie faced a massive 57 shots.

Fife have had a lineup change since they last played the Devils with D man Aigars Brencis being released at the end of his trial, in his place Fife have added forward Toms Hartmanis. The 23 year old, Latvian forward joined the Flyers from the American Hockey League’s, Missouri Mavericks.

Toms is no stranger to the UK, scoring 25 goals and 35 assists for the Newcastle Vipers last season, and was a team mate of current Flyer, Danny Stewart.

 “Toms will give us a lot more speed up front and more going forwards. He is one of the best skaters I have ever played with, and can score goals as well. He is an exciting player that keeps other teams back a bit when he is on the ice. This is by no means the only solution to making us more competitive, but it’s a great start, and he will fit in nicely with the team, both on and off the ice.”

Toms has previously played his hockey in both the Latvian league and Continental Cup for HK Riga, Dinamo Riga in the KHL and was a silver medallist for Latvia at both the U18 Junior World Championships (JWC) in 2005, and U20 JWC 2 years later in 2007.

From our full look at the Fife squad at the start of the season check out the following http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/news/match-preview-devils-vs-flyers-8th-october/.

At the start of the season we wondered if only signing 7 imports would be an issue for the Flyers and this really seems to be the case, we also thought they may lack some depth in scoring in the roster which also seems to be very correct.

In addition to these issues we are also now seeing that the lack of experience, and maybe quality, in defense taking a toll with only one full time import D man in Cohen who is very offensively minded and Danny Stewart who looks to be switching from playing on D to upfront when needed. The Flyers D is to put it tactfully woeful.

The knock on effect of the defensive situation is that net minder Garret Zelmak (who looks like he may well be a rock star with a decent D in front of him) is facing horrific numbers of shots a game and shipping goals at a worrying rate. On average he faces 41 plus shots a game. He has faced in total 739 shots in just 18 games. When you compare this to for example Panthers net minder Craig Kowalski who has faced just 561 shots in 24 games for an average of 23 shots a game you get a real idea if how badly Zelmak is being left hanging out to dry.

Scoring for the Flyers is coming from only a handful of the squad with Mike Hamilton (27 points) and Matt Siddall (20 points) being the main scoring threats, secondary scoring is coming predominantly from the Blue line, who really should be at home looking after their own goal, with Matt Cohen (17) and Danny Stewart (13) making up much of the Flyers scoring. The arrival of Toms Hartmanis will no doubt bolster the squads scoring as he’s picked up 7 points in his opening 9 games.

The Flyers face Edinburgh at home on Saturday and providing there are no injuries should travel to Cardiff with a full team, the Devils on the other hand have Saturday off and will only be missing defender Mark Smith and Chris Frank makes his welcome return from suspension in time for Sunday’s game.

The Devils scoring continues to be led by Jeff Pierce on 22 points while Max Birbraer is in second place on 21 points, Captain Stuart MacRae sits on 20 points while Scott Matzka is on 18 points, Kenton Smith rounds out the team’s top five scorers with a respectable 16 points.

As always well be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased”  Match Night Live service for this game, 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. You can also follow on Twitter for updates on @InfernoMNL

And don’t forget if you’re looking for somewhere to have a pint and a bite to eat before the game or a few beers afterwards the Pilot in Penarth is a short trip away and will also be open afterwards for post-match drinks, directions to the pub can be found here - http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/where-to-eatdrink/