Match Preview - Devils Vs Steelers 3rd December

1st Dec 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Saturday night sees the Devils on the road at the end of their three game home stand. The Devils take on the Steelers at home in Sheffield in what will be the the fifth game of the season between the teams. The Steelers come into the weekend after their relatively disastrous foray into the Continental cup but even with last weekend providing three defeats for the Sheffield side the Steelers will be confident of taking the win on Saturday as they currently lead the series against the Devils this season 3-1.

I wont go into any great detail on how the Steelers did in their cup games but you can check them out on the Steelers web site, from reading the text updates from the club last weekend it sounded like their style didn't really impress the ref’s they took a lot of very soft penalties and paid the price for them.

In short they started against HC Asiago on Friday and lost there 4-3 in a penalty shoot out in what sounded like there best game of the weekend. Saturday saw them go down 3-0 to the home side the Herning Blue Fox  and Sunday saw them crash out in a 6-3 loss to Hungarian champions the Dunaujveros Bulls.

So all in all a weekend that the Steelers would rather forget, the only silver lining being the return from injury for forward Mike Ramasy. STEELERS’ coach Ryan Finnerty has gone on record to say that  there must be no “hang-over” from the club’s Continental Cup trip to Denmark.

“Teams returning after such an intensive programme rarely do well in the following domestic games. We haven’t got that luxury - we’ve a lot of matches coming up and need to play hard.”

The Steelers will see Captain Jonathan Phillips return to the Ice after a long spell off with an injury this weekend in time to take on the Devils. Finnerty had this to say on the return of Phillips

“Having Jono back will be great, I call him my Labrador. If I throw a puck up the ice he just gallops off and brings it back to me!

“When he’s not in the team we feel we are missing a beat.”

Speaking himself Philips had this to say on his return.

“I am ready to play. I have worked so hard and have been skating for a few weeks now. I have full mobility in the knee and it feels better than it has done for an age. The physio says I am good to go and I’ve just had the final all-clear from the surgeon”

“I’ve told the coach I am back for the Cardiff game, I have missed long enough it’s time for me to get back in that uniform. I know my own body and right now it is screaming at me: ‘Let me play.’

“It has been so frustrating watching and not playing. Even at the weekend I thought I was fit enough to play in Denmark but it wasn’t to be."

“I still went, I practised hard on the ice every day - I know I’m ready.”

The Steelers will of course be without Rod Sarich who is still recovering from surgery after a season ending injury, it does look like the Steelers are wasting no time getting in a replacement  in and already have someone lined up as replacement, the one difference being they are looking at a stay at home D man to sure up their already rock solid Defence. According to their web site they hope to have this cover in before the weekend ?

Speaking on the new player they are looking at Finnerty had this to say 

“He’s been round the block and comes highly recommended by our goalie (John DeCaro) - and when your goalie picks somebody to stand in front of him, you have to listen.”

They are yet to name any names but the player is a 28-year-old Canadian defence man playing in the Central Hockey League who's more than likely played with DeCaro.

The Steelers offence continues to impress and is stacked with scoring talent, top scores this term for the Steelers are Jeff Legue on 29 points, Ashley Tait on 24 points, Neil Clark on 22 points and both Mike Ramsay and Ryan Finnerty on 19 points, Colt King sits not far behind the pack on 18 points and will look to protect his team mates as always.

The Steelers defence will of course be without Rod Sarich but is still built on the bedrock that is John DeCaro who in conjunction with his defence has given up  just 42 goals so far this season for a 93.5% save percentage.

You can check out all the action from the Devils overtime loss against the Panthers on Wednesday night on Devils TV here http://www.cardiffdevils.com/news/30th-nov-highlights-vs-panthers/ 

The Devils will be without Defence man Mark Smith and have any injury question mark over Gerard Adams who left the game against the Panthers early on Wednesday.

All things considered I think this game will be a big ask for the Devils, the Steelers will be keen to exorcise the memories of last weekend and get the home crowd behind them. The Steelers currently sit in third place on 28 points but are ideally primed to make a challenge for the league title again with six games in hand over the league leaders who currently sit on 36 points. The Steelers need to capitalize on this and make every game count, they won't want the Devils beating them at home.

As always we need to play smart hockey away on the larger Sheffield pad and grind out a win no matter how ugly. Its of utmost importance that the Devils stay out of the penalty box as unlike our powerplay the Steelers power play has teeth and bites deep. One odd static we need to watch out for is that the Steelers score 42% of their goals in the second period.
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/