Match Preview - Devils Vs Giants 12th November

10th Nov 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Saturday night see’s the Devils take on league leaders the Belfast Giants at home in Belfast’s Odyssey arena. The two teams have met twice so far this season when the Giants came to Cardiff in September they came away 3 - 4 winners and then again in October when diminutive sniper and ex devil Jon Pelle ran riot and scored a hat trick in a 2 - 6 defeat for the home team.

The Giants have been in great form this season having dropped just five games so far in all competitions, this largely due to some brilliant recruitment in the off season and the ability to carry a spare import or two (or maybe 3? ) to cover injuries.

The Giants did however have a rough weekend on the road last weekend starting on Saturday in Braehead in a Challenge Cup game where a flying start to the first period from the Clan saw them three in the lead.
The opening goal came at early in the game for Kyle Bruce this score stood for ten minutes until the home side scored two goals in as many minutes. Ex-Giant Mike Bayrack netted followed by a strike from Jade Galbraith to put the Giants 3 nil in down.

Within the first minute of the second period the Giants had pulled one back with a goal from Aaron Clarke. Despite outshooting their opponents 2 to 1 in the period that was the only goal in the period.

The third period saw the Clan play a holding action against the Giants who couldn’t muster a goal and in the dying minutes of the game pulled Murphy who hardly had time to sit down when Clan player/coach Drew Bannister shot from his own end into the empty net with the goal timed at 57.47.

It’s worth checking the Highlights of this game out, there’s a fairly controversial hit from Giants forward Benoit Doucet  about three minutes in  which has caused quite a bit of debate this week.

 Final score Clan 4 – 1 Giants who suffered their first loss on the road this season.

Sunday saw the Giants take on the Coventry Blaze for their second road game of the weekend and again an all-action start saw Blaze take the lead after only 2 minutes thanks to a goal by Matic Kralj who then went on to make it 2-0 just two minutes later. Trying to battle their way back into the game the Giants Adam Keefe fought Bryan Jurynec of the Blaze and both were binned for fighting.

The pace never slackened and Benoit Doucet pulled one back for Giants not long after but the Blaze were not finished and Farmer scored a 3rd for the home side to leave them in control after the opening period.
The second session started well for the Blaze who held onto their advantage but momentum shifted when the Giants scored shorthanded through Darryl Lloyd to bring them to within a goal.

The change of fortune for Giants kept going when Mark Garside scored the Giants 2nd short hander of the game to tie it all up at three apiece. The Giants missed a great chance to go ahead when Lloyd missed a penalty shot and neither team was able to find a regulation winner after that.

In  overtime Blaze dominated while on the power play – outshooting Giants by 5 to 0 but the visitors survived until the shootout where Blaze finally grabbed the extra point.

Speaking after last weekend’s defeats Belfast coach Doug Christiansen had this to say.

“Last weekend, was our worst of the season. We had fantastic away support against Braehead but we played very poorly for the last half of the first period and Braehead shut us down after that. We made some horrible mental mistakes and it cost us.”

”It was a valuable lesson for the team. We are an excellent team but no team can make the mistakes we did and expect to win on the road.”

The Giants play the Fife Flyers at home on Friday before the game against the Devils on Saturday so will have some time to work out the issues of last weekend this week and a game to trial any changes before seeing the Devils Saturday.

The Giants roster is packed with Scoring depth, although they will likely be without top scorer Benoit Doucet they several others more than capable of stepping in and scoring with the likes of Jon Pelle in the side along with Jeff Mason, Mark Garside, Craig Peacock and “playing for next to nothing” spare import George Awada the Giants still have a great deal of offensive firepower.

In nets the Giants are well backed up by Stephen Murphy the current 2nd ranked goalie in the league with a save percentage of 93.2%. Murphy will be a tough nut for the Devils to crack.

The Devils had a mixed bag of results last weekend starting with a 3 – 1 win at home on Saturday against the Nottingham Panthers, where despite being outplayed for large periods of the game the Devils managed to get the win with an outstanding performance from Man of the Match Stevie Lyle who stopped 34 of the 35 Panthers shots, and two goals from Max Birbraer who played an absolute blinder of a game.

Sundays Challenge Cup game against the Hull Stingrays ended in a 2-2 Draw for the Devils with Goals coming from Ben Davies and Gerard Adams.

Injury wise the Devils will still be without Mark Smith who is out for the foreseeable future whilst the Giants could well still be missing Brock McBride and Robert Dowd who were both absent from last weekend’s games through Injury.

The Giants apart from a slight stumble last weekend have seemed near unstoppable so far this season. With their very strong recruitment and the ability to cover injury with spare Imports the Giants really look to have things more than a little sewn up this season. Getting the win in this game will be a big ask for the Devils but it’s something they should be able to do. The Devils will need to play a smart game and stay out of the box as much as possible to be in with a chance. They also need to remember that Jon Pelle always stands in the same spot to score.. something we seemed to forget last time.

We will 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’re heading up and are able to help out please let us know as we needs people who can text for this one. If we can run the, check the Game thread for details, service and 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/