Match Preview - Challenge Cup 2nd Leg

Saturday night see's the Devils in action against the Belfast Giants in Belfast's Odyssey arena, the game counting as both the Challenge cup Semi Final and a league game with valuable league points at stake. The Giants have by in large ruled the roost over Cardiff so far this season winning all bar two of their games over the Devils and all their league games in Cardiff something that the Devils set to rights with the first leg of the Challenge cup Semi win at home.

The Giants come into this match well rested after their 3 game road trip that’s started in Cardiff with the first leg of the Challenge cup semi-final where the Devils prevailed 2 – 1 (Full details of  here http://www.cardiffdevils.com/news/cardiff-devils-2-1-belfast-giants2012/ ), before heading to Scotland to take on first the Braehead Clan and then the Fife Flyers.

Starting on Friday in Braehead against the Clan where the first period ended in stalemate as despite dominating the shot count 13 – 3 the Giants couldn't put one away.

The Giants opened the scoring early in the second as Robert Dowd won a faceoff in the Clan end and played it back to Aaron Clarke on the point and he fired into the net past an unsighted Suomalainen. The Clan however came back to level some after with a power play goal from player/coach Drew Bannister. This saw the second period end 1 – 1

The Clan took the lead with a goal from Mike Wirll scoring his first goal for the club early in the third but the Giants pulled the game back level with a goal from newly returned Paul Deniset with just 12 minutes to go.

In overtime neither team could a seal the win so the game went to Penalties. Both teams then scored twice before Dowd with his second attempt netted the game winner and Wirll missed his for the Giants to pick up the extra point.

With the Giants outshooting the Clan 37 – 18 the final score Braehead Clan 2 – 3 Belfast Giants.

Saturday night saw the Giants in action against the Fife Flyers who after the first two periods had held the Giants goalless, before finally the Giants broke through in the Third period with a goal from George Awada, capitalizing on this the Giants doubled their lead soon after with a strike from Aaron Clarke.

The Flyers pulled goaltender at Garrett Zemlak 58.43 in an effort to get something out the game but Robert Dowd found the empty net with just 5 seconds remaining.

Final score Fife Flyers 0 - 3 Belfast Giants

As I said last time we played then the Giants roster when its firing comes with a great deal of Scoring depth with Craig Peacock leading the way of 46 points, backed up by former Steeler Robert Dowd on 42 points the always dangerous Jon Pelle on 40 points, with strong secondary scoring coming from the likes of and they are amply backed up by newcomer Aaron Clarke and the likes of Jeremy Rebek, Adam Keefe ( The subject of our next Interview) and Jeff Mason on Defence plus many more in their cast of lots.

In addition to the Belfast  look to have Mike Hoffman coming in in time to bolster the roster ahead of the weekends game who re-signed the week having spent the season, playing for Portland Pirates in the American Hockey League and Las Vegas Wranglers in the ECHL.

 “He is coming straight from the AHL. I have signed him as a forward. He can also play defence, but I feel that he is more effective up front."

“We needed a player who can help us offensively and Mike does that in different ways than most creative players.”

“We have a number of players who can skate and be creative, but we have very few who can open up room on the ice with size and physical presence.”

“Hoffman will be effective at the net front by screening goalies and getting rebounds. We will face a lot of excellent goalies in the next two months and Hoff could block out the sun if he had to, let alone a goaltender’s vision. If we are going to accomplish our goals, we are going to have to get to the net and be difficult to play against.”

The Devils go into the game missing Mark Smith on Defence and Max Birbraer up front, it is hope that Brad Voth will return to the team in time for the game but as yet there has been no word if this is the case.

The Devils go into this game with a one goal advantage having won the first leg by a single goal, it’s going to be a tight one but they have won in the Odyssey this season so it’s something they know how to do.  Goal tending will be the key with Murphy for the Giants having had a few rough games of late.

As always we'll be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased” Match Night Live service 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. Should anything go wrong (which it shouldn’t) we will move over to twitter for updates so follow us there on @InfernoMNL

And don’t forget if you’re looking for somewhere to have a pint and a bite to eat while the Devils are out of town the Pilot in Penarth is only a short trip away and has a great Hockey friendly atmosphere, directions to the pub can be found here - http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/where-to-eatdrink/