Weekend Preview - Braehead Clan

27th Sep 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

This weekend see’s the Devils take on the Braehead Clan home and away in back to back league games. The Devils make the long trip up to Scotland on Saturday and then home, travelling twice, to face the Scottish side on home Ice on Sunday.

The Clan joined the Elite league at the start of last season as an Expansion team joining along with the Dundee Stars. Based out of the Braehead arena on the outskirts of Glasgow the Clan settled into the league well in their first season lead by player coach Bruce Richardson. The Clan finished in a more than respectable 5th place in the league and the campaign also saw them lift the Aladdin Cup (Picture of Aladdin Cup adjacent may vary from the actual Cup) defeating the Nottingham Panthers to do so.

The off season started well for the Clan who quickly re-signed Coach Bruce Richardson and then soon after secured their agreement with the arena for Ice time for the next five years, Coach Richardson then got to work signing his team for the coming year unfortunately the good start then lost a little of its shine with Richardson being offered a job that was too good to turn down coaching Midget AAA hockey at home in Quebec.

With Richardson’s departure the hunt was on for a new coach which the Clan located in Drew Bannister the 37 year old defenseman from Belleville Ontario who joined the Hull Stingrays part way through last season. Bannister looks to be the right man for the Job having a wealth of experience under his belt having played for  4 NHL teams in his career, starting with Tampa Bay Lightning before moving on to Edmonton Oilers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks and the New York Rangers. As well as playing in the NHL, Bannister has also played in the AHL, SM Liiga, RSL, and the DEL and finally in the EHIL for Hull.

Picking up the nucleus of last year’s team already signed by Richardson new coach Bannister quickly completed his roster. The team that the two coaches have built between them looks strong building nicely on last year’s team with 8 of last season’s players returning. In addition to these returnees the Clan has picked up a few players from other teams taking on only 3 players new to the league in the offseason, 2 imports and a local home grown player. 

Looking at this year’s team starting with the forwards the Clan have a good group of players returning in Ryan Campbell who returns for a second season with the Clan, Campbell 31, has impressive stats in his 380 odd games as a pro ice hockey player in North America and Europe having scored 147 goals and 178 assists. Also coming back to the Clan is Assistant Captain Kyle Bruce who was the Clan’s “Entertainer of the Year” and Elite League nominated “Entertainer of the Year”.  Bruce played 43 league/cup games for the Clan last season and notched up 38 points (14 goals and 24 assists) and 104 PIM in an injury marred season.

Joining them is Jordan Krestanovich newly appointed team Captain a former NHL player Krestanovich joined the Clan later in the 2010/2011 season, playing 43 games and amassing 50 points (16 goals and 34 assists). Coach Richardson who made the re-signing had this to say about Krestanovich.

“He is fast and very skilled on the puck, he scored some excellent goals last season and 50 points out of 43 games is fantastic. If he plays in all 54 league games this season then I think he will be up there with the top point’s leaders in the league in 2011/2012”

Joining the Clan but not new to the league are Jade Galbraith  goal scorer and sniper, Jade Galbraith amassed 237 points in 164 games for his previous club the Nottingham Panthers, winning 4 trophies in his time playing with the Panthers. Player/Coach Drew Bannister had the following to say on the signing.

“I'm very excited to have Jade this season as a player for the clan. I've talked with Jade over the past weeks and he is excited to come on board with the Clan and help us build a winning tradition. Jade's talents speak for themselves, he's an offensive threat, and will improve our offense this coming season”

In addition to Galbraith the Clan secured the signing of Mike Bayrack who formally played in the league for the Belfast Giants the 32 year old, left handed Centre, played 34 games for the Giants last season before moving on to the Austrian league. Bayrack brings with him a wealth of experience and skill. Having played in Germany, Austria, Denmark and Slovenia, as well as playing for AHL and ECHL sides.

The Clans only import forward who is new to the league Brock McPherson  joins the Clan following 5 seasons in the CIS with the Lakeside University Thunderwolves. Scoring 28 points in 28 games in his last season with them. McPherson was one of the top offensive players for the Wolves and was famous for his strong corner work and ability to control the puck along the boards in the opponent’s end. This season with the Clan will be Brocks first Pro season so if he makes the step up well he should be a real asset for the Clan.

Brits Adam Walker and Vince Connon return for a second season with the Clan joined by newcomer Callum Adamson who is a product of the Kirkcaldy Junior Ice Hockey development and over the last 2 seasons has been playing for both the Under 20s and Fife Flyers. Callum has played for both the U17s and U19s Scotland teams and was the Assistant Captain at U17 level. He has also been selected for the GB U20 squad. 

On Defence the Clan retain the services of Tim Wedderburn who is a newly appointed assistant captain with AHL and ECHL experience for his second year with the Clan.  Joining him are Matt Haywood who also joins for his second season and Kevin Phillips also re-joining after being heavily linked to the Sheffield Steelers over the off season.

New to the Clan but not new to the league are player Coach Drew Bannister who played with Hull last season and Sam Zajac from the now sadly defunct Newcastle Vipers.

Joining them on Defence is new edition James Jorgensen  the 25 year old, 5’11, US born, left handed defenseman joins the Clan from the CHL Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs, where he has played for the last 2 seasons. Jorgensen has experience in both the ECHL and CHL and Braehead Clan Head Coach Bruce Richardson who made this signing thinks he has the credentials and personality to slot right in with the Clan team he is putting together for season two

In Goal the Clan are admirably backstopped by Jaakko Suomalainen the 33 year old Finish player who joins the Clan having played last season with HK Jesenice in Austria. Jaakko is no stranger to Glasgow, having played for the Paisley Pirates back in 2001/2002 in the BNL. He played 17 games for the Pirates before returning to Finland to finish the season in the Finland 3 league with Karhu Kissat. Jaakko has played in some of the top European leagues such as the Finland 3 and Finland 2 as well as the SM-Liiga.

The Clan look to be a very good side and this year with a trio of good goal scores in Galbraith, Bayrack and Krestanovich and strong Secondary scorers in the likes of Bruce and Ryan Campbell, solid goal tending a decent defense and a wealth of experience in their line up and coach. The Clan’s season got off to a good start winning their two opening games last weekend beating the Capitals Sunday 4-2 in Murrayfield and shutting out the Dundee Stars on home Ice in a six goal shut out.

There isn’t a great deal of history between the two teams who met just six (not 4, cheers to the Clan fan who spotted this) times last year with the Devils coming away the victors on four out of the six occasions with a single heavy defeat for the Devils at the hands of the Clan 7-1 on the Clans home Ice in Braehead and an overtime defeat also on the Clans home Ice.

The Devils had a pair of wins last weekend in Challenge cup games against both the Hull Stingrays and the Coventry Blaze for full details you can check out regular contributor Holly Acott’s match write up’s here http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/news/weekend-review-24th-and-25th-september/

The Devils should be at full Strength for this weekend with no reported injuries in the roster after last weekend saw the return of Max Birbraer.

The main worry for me, other than Braehead possibly being awesome, going into the weekend is the amount of time the guys will be spending on the bus with the trip to Scotland always being a banana skin for the Devils, who came away with just one win out of three trips up to Braehead last season, and then also the trip back after the game being a possible issue for the home Game Sunday. The one plus for the Devils is the run in to the weekend they have had as the Clan have only really played 2 games whilst the Devils should be at full match speed having been in action for a month already, this time honing systems and getting to know how each other play will hopefully give the Devils a real edge this weekend.

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/