Match Preview - Devils Vs Stingrays

3rd Nov 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Sunday night see’s the Devils take on the Hull Stingrays away in Hull in the Challenge cup. This will be the second time the two clubs have met this year with the Devils beating the Stingrays at home 4-2 in the first leg of the challenge cup tie.

The Devils have one foot firmly in the Semi Final but need to secure wins in their remaining two cup games to ensure that they go through cleanly. On the other hand the Stingrays have lost all of their four Challenge cup games to date and sit at the bottom of the group of death.

Hull look to have no hope of qualifying but will no doubt still come out and  play as they are still carrying one more import than they can afford. The Stingrays currently have 11 Imports which means coach Cloutier will now have to drop one of his 11-strong import contingent as he can’t afford to run with all 11.

Having lost 13 of their first 14 games, Stingrays put their full squad on two weeks' notice and revealed one player would be axed to accommodate the return of defenseman Kurtis Dulle. In short this likely means a forward will leave as Cloutier has stated his intention to run with four import Dmen.

"I've had my mind made up for a long time, so we'll see what happens," said Cloutier.

The Stingrays played twice last weekend firstly facing the Fife Flyers on Saturday where they continued their recent form as they made it three wins out of three all against Scottish opposition. Having been a goal down in the opening minutes they went on to hit six unanswered to take the points back to Humberside.

The hosts opened the scoring with a marker from Mike Hamilton inside the first two minutes. Hull were back on level terms with a shorthanded goal from Derek Campbell at 8.51.

Then two power play goals from the visitors in the final minute of the first period gave them a 3-1 lead. Dominic Osman got the first at 19.05 and 16 seconds later Dmitry Rodin added the second.A second goal of the game for Osman increased the Stingrays lead at 22.01 and Jason Silverthorn netted at 32.56 to give them a 5-1 lead.

Only the one goal in the third period and again it was misery for Fife as Hull scored their fourth special team goal of the night at 45.59 as Frantisek Bakalik completed the scoring. Final score Fife 1 – 6 Stingrays.

Speaking after this game Coach Cloutier had this to say

“Special teams are key. We scored a lot of even-strength goals against Braehead but our power play has been good all year.”

“We are having a number of guys chipping in with goals now and that is what they were brought here to do."

“Winning breeds confidence and it is nice to get three in a row. We have a tough game against Belfast tomorrow but we are on a roll and we want to keep that going.”

Sunday night saw the Stingrays in action at home against the Belfast Giants. Despite total Giants domination the 1st period seemed to be heading to stalemate until Darryl Lloyd scored on a shorthanded play with only 36 seconds remaining in the period to edge the Giants ahead.

The Stingrays were a different side in the 2nd period and gave as much as they got – being rewarded with a game tying goal from Kurtis Dulle to send the teams in level after 40 minutes.

The third period went one way then the other but neither team could find a way through – until the Giants grabbed what proved to be the winner when Benoit Doucet was on hand to score and with Mark Garside hitting the empty net with 38 seconds remaining.

Speaking after the game Stingray forward Dominic Osman had this to say

“We played really good hockey. We had some chances but the goaltender played great and made some good saves."

“You want to play well as a team and that is the only way you are going to win games. We are starting to buy into the system and you can tell. That was a good hockey game by us – we just had a couple of bad bounces.”

The Stingrays face the Sheffield Steelers in the Cup on the Saturday night before so could conceivably start this game 0 – 5 while the Devils face the Nottingham Panthers in a league game at home.

Barring any injuries the night before the Stingrays should be a full strength while the Devils will be missing defence man Mark Smith.

We will be trying to run 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/