I missed the start of the game as I was late getting home from watching Cardiff hammer Coventry in football, and by the time I got the online stream going I had missed the Devils take the lead.
The first period though seemed to be end to end with the Devils shading it though the Blaze slowly started to slowly get better and equalised after a great Robinson pass from his own goal line was picked up by Fussey on the Devils blue line and he skated in and finished with style.
Blaze nearly made it 2-1 with seconds left of the first period, after Lyle made a save from a 2-on-1 break the puck fell to Selmser with an open goal infront of him - only for Weller to somehow get his stick on the puck enough to divert it away from Selmser.
Second period was pretty awful as Hicks had one of his shockers. First he called Voth for netminder interference despite Voth slamming the brakes on to avoid a collision, whilst letting Chambers get away with falling backwards onto Lyle when no one was near him. Then after Fulghum fell to the ice theatrically and Finnerty was given 2 for hooking, Voth gestured to Hicks that it was a dive and despite the video replay suggesting no words from Voth, Hicks gave him a 10 minute misconduct penalty for abuse of official.
As a result the Devils spent most of the period on the penalty-kill but the Blaze never really created that many clear cut chances.
Into the third period, and the Devils came out much the better team and twice got the puck bobbling across the line only for it to stay out. Coventry then picked up a hooking penalty, and Jaeger started performing heroics with two outstanding saves against Michel then Finnerty (who was lucky not to get sent to the bin for hacking away at Jaegar when the puck looked covered up).
Seconds later though the Devils took the lead, a great passing move setup Pelle in the slot and he scored his 3 billionth goal of the season (or something like that). Devils forechecked brilliantly for the next 5 minutes and stopped Blaze creating anything. Then out of nothing the Blaze counter-attacked quickly and a cross ice pass from blueline to blueline picked out Fussey and before Richardson could get across the let go a wrist shot which beat Lyle who had probably left too big a gap on his near post.
This gave the Blaze a boost and they had a good 5 minute spell as the Devils started to pick up more penalties. On the rare occasion of equalhanded hockey the Devils looked the more likely to score and Jaeger again came to the Blaze rescue. Weller also unleashed a huge hip check along the boards that sent Fulghum flying, the Blaze fans were up in arms but I'm not sure why.
Into Overtime and the Devils dominated whilst I can only remember the Blaze having one shot on goal (which nearly bobbled in). In the final minute, a quick pass to Birbraer and a lovely deke got him past Robinson and into the Blaze zone alone. Robinson then grabbed him around the head and dragged him to the ground, but of course it was too much for Hicks to call a nailed on penalty.
Into Penalty Shots.
Matzka went first, but after trying to deke Jaeger his lost his footing and fired wise.
Fussey then went for the Blaze, but Lyle cut down the angle before making a cracking glove save.
Pelle next, and after a couple of dekes he allowed Jaeger to commit himself before sliding the puck past him.
Owen up for the Blaze, and Lyle shadowed him well and looked to have made the save only for the puck to slip through the fivehole to level it.
Birbraer for the Devils, and after several fakes it looked like he had missed his chance to shoot only to flick the puck beautifully into the roof of the net.
Fulghum needed to score to keep the game alive, but again Lyle came out to cut down the angle and saved the shot with his pads.
Overall not a great game but I felt the Devils deserved to win. On a separate note - were the Blaze fans dressed as blue seats?
Looking at the online booking facility before the game it seemed to be nearly a sell out with only a handful of seats left in each block. Yet in the first period especially some blocks were only half full.
It didn't look quite as bad towards the end of the game - what happened?