Match Preview - Devils Vs Steelers 9th October

Sunday night is Hockey night this week in Cardiff and few games are bigger than Devils vs. Steelers in the eyes of the Devils hometown crowd. With many of last year’s Devils team returning many of the players will no doubt have the memory of losing out on the league title after levelling on points by regulation wins to the Yorkshire side firmly in mind. Either way it’s going to be a big one!

The two teams have met twice already in the season this term splitting the results a game a piece with the Devils shutting the Steelers out at home 4-0 in September and the Steelers winning the return game 5-3 the next night in the house of tin. The teams also met twice in the pre-season with the Steelers coming away the better on both occasions.

The Steelers currently sitting second in the league with 7 wins from 8 games ran away with their ties last weekend shutting out the Hull Stingrays on Saturday and then giving the Fife Flyers the same treatment Sunday
Saturday against Hull saw John DeCaro earn his first shutout of the season as he turned away all 23 shots that the Stingrays fired on him.  A pair of goals each from Mike Ramsay and Ashley Tait plus goals from Neil Clark and Ryan Finnerty sealed the win for the Steelers. 

Sunday night saw the Steelers in action again shutting out newcomers the Fife Flyers. The Steelers started with their backup net minder Geoff Woolhouse in nets resting DeCaro, Woolhouse played a blinder and turned away all of the Flyers 17 shots. The Steelers goals on Sunday coming from Colt King in the first period, Ashley Tait and Jeff Legue in the second and Tom Squires and Rod Sarich in the third period to close out a comfortable win for the injury stricken side.

The Steelers were hit by another injury Sunday night to add to their growing list of the walking wounded as Canadian winger Neil Clark’s  soccer skills were found somewhat wanting and  an hour before face off he  jolted his ankle on an uneven floor board. Add this to the existing injury list featuring Jonathan Phillips, (knee) Chad Huttel (concussion) and player coach Ryan Finnerty (back) the Steelers were very short benched going into Sundays game.

Sunday saw the Steelers icing just eight forwards and rotating two centres whilst they still got the result against Fife they may find this weekend with games against Coventry and Cardiff they will not have as easy a run unless some of their injured players are declared fit and return to the ice.

As yet the only player returning for the Steelers 100% for certain is Ryan Finnerty who has said he will be back for the Blaze game.

Coach Finnerty admitted the on-ice success last weekend has been tempered by the loss of Clark, who will undergo further tests this week to determine the full extent of his injury.

“Clarky is going to be a big loss for us; He’s been playing really well and contributing lots of goals. It was just one of those freak accidents that happens - we weren’t doing anything we wouldn’t normally do."

“Any time you don’t concede as a team you’ve got to be pleased and to do it on both nights was reward for the hard work we put in last week on our ‘D’.”

“I thought the Hull game saw us put in our most complete performance of the season so far. We made it really hard for Hull to generate anything in terms of offence and we had some great puck possession.”

The Steelers are doing well on the scoring front so far this season with three of their Squad in league’s top ten Clark, Ramsay and Legue have combined for 18 goals and 24 assists so far this season. Also with the likes of Legue, Ramsay, Birnstill and Sarich in the squad the Steelers power play is a real danger.

For full details of the Devils games last weekend in case you missed them, we’d suggest checking out Devils fan Holly Acott’s blog which has a great write up of both games here http://theworldofsportbyateengirl.blogspot.com/

The Devils trip to Braehead last weekend was a 23 hour round trip and Fife is a little further so the Devils prep for this game is an epic bus trip.  We may well see some ill effects from this early on Sunday but if last Sunday performance was anything to go by the guys will be raring to go.

Speaking to Wales’s online player- coach Gerard Adams had this to say in the run up to this weekend’s games
“We have to be more clinical and our key players must step up and deliver."

“Our matches this weekend are against Fife Flyers away on Saturday and Sheffield Steelers at home on Sunday. Our aim has to be two wins.”

The Devils will hopefully be injury free after the trip to Fife and will hopefully have a full squad as long as Centre Scott Matzka returns.

As always we'll be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased”  Match Night Live service for these two game, providing we can get texters for the away game Saturday, at the 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 before the game or a few beers afterwards the Pilot in Penarth is a short trip away and will be offering discount bar meals before the game and will be open afterwards for post-match drinks, directions to the pub can be found here - http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/where-to-eatdrink/