Devils deflated after failing to Czech out win

ANDREW Lord and his Cardiff Devils were left deflated and frustrated after suffering a Champions League defeat against Czech champions Bili Tygri Liberec.

Player-coach Lord was delighted at the way his team started, pushing their visitors back with tough, physical play, and they led by two goals before going down.

“It was an extremely frustrating night,” said Lord. ”During the first period we did everything we had talked about and then some. It was an awesome start.

“Everybody bought into what we were doing, including Devils fans.

“But we got away from our game plan in some areas, simple areas such as turnovers. We have to play hard minutes against these teams.

“In the first period we ground it out and slowed their speed down. Overall, it is frustrating to lose like that, but it’s also unbelievable to be part of something where one mistake means so much.

“You have to be perfect out there or the opposition will punish you.

“We knew we would learn a lot from Champions League hockey and we have. We will come out strong against HC Davos on Sunday.”

Devils had Liberec reeling during the first period, skating out hard to take control, but overall the Czech team had far too much speed for their hosts.

Liberec won against Devils at home (5-2) after trailing by two goals and hit back from the same deficit in Cardiff Bay.

Matthew Myers and Patrick Asselin made it 2-0 to Cardiff and Layne Ulmer also scored later, but they suffered a third Champions Hockey League group defeat.

Devils now take on Swiss club HC Davos at home tomorrow (6pm).

Cardiff went ahead after only three minutes 16 seconds when, with Liberec hanging on against steady pressure, Welshman Myers fired into the top corner from a Drew Paris assist. It was soon 2-0 as Asselin was the scorer from Joey Haddad’s assist on 4-47.

Liberec gained some relief when Jan Ordos scored a powerplay goal on 12-25, but this was a feisty, aggressive period.

Jaroslav Vlach and Andrew Hotham dropped the gloves and fought after 16-17 with the Czech player given a two plus 10 minute penalty for misconduct. Hotham sat for two minutes on a roughing call.

At one stage there were six players in the two penalties boxes, four of them from Liberec. The visitors killed off their penalties and levelled the scores when Martin Bakos skated clear and fired past Ben Bowns.

Justin Faryna was penalised almost immediately for slashing and Liberec made the home team pay with a powerplay goal on 25-40 to take the lead.

Devils were far from finished and Ulmer smashed a shot high into the Liberec net after 29-53 with assists going to Gleason Fournier and Paris.

Liberec hit back within eight seconds, regaining the lead from a Filip Pyrochta shot which flew in off the pipework, and scored their fifth of the match following a defensive error.

Bakos, skating away from goal after a loose puck, spun sharply and smashed a shot high into the Devils net. Liberec led 5-3 going into the final period and added a sixth when Ordos fired home (41-46).

Bakos completed his hat-trick for Liberec, while Cardiff had Josh Batch thrown out on a five minutes plus game penalty for checking from behind.