ICE HOCKEY Devils are not so gr-eight against the Belfast Giants
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ELITE League leaders Belfast Giants shocked Cardiff Devils and their home crowd by skating away with an 8-1 victory at Ice Arena Wales.
It was the Welsh side’s heaviest defeat on home ice since they moved to the venue three seasons ago.
The opening period belonged to the Giants, who despite getting outshot 10-7, went into the break with a 2-0 lead.
The opening goal came with the teams playing 4 on 4 when Devils defenceman Mark Richardson lost an edge at the blueline allowing two Giants go in uncontested on Bowns. Jim Vandermeer finished off a pass from Kyle Baun to give the visitors the lead.
The Giants went straight onto the powerplay after the 4 on 4 goal with Sean Bentivoglio still in the box for hooking and they quickly doubled their lead when the Devils couldn’t clear the puck out of the zone and Baun found the back of the net.
The Devils finally got on the board in the second period when Joey Martin connected with Bentivoglio to pull the Devils within a goal, making it 2-1 at 25:45.
A delay of game penalty to Matt Pope for shooting the puck out of his own zone led to another Giants powerplay goal with Baun getting his second goal of the night, then almost immediately the Giants were back on the powerplay when Bentivoglio was called for holding. Another powerplay goal, this time by Blair Riley put the visitors up 4-1 at 34:19.
Two more goals from Belfast early in the third period put the game out of reach for the Devils. Firstly, Baun scored his hat-trick goal on the powerplay just 46 seconds into the period. Then Vandermeer scored his second of the night at 42:59, which ended the night for Ben Bowns as he was replaced in goal by Thomas Murdy for the final 17 minutes of the game.
Things didn’t get any better for the Devils as Baun grabbed his fourth and Darcy Murphy tipped in a shot from Curtis Leonard to round out the scoring.
The weekend had started well for Devils after a 4-2 away win over Milton Keynes Lightning on saturday.
The Devils scored first, through Charles Linglet – Stephen Dixon and Mike Hedden assisting – before goals from Cole Shudra and Tim Wallace put the home side in front.
Layne Ulmer got the Devils back to even with a nice goal at 27:43 with Jake Morissette getting the lone assist. then the visitors took the lead through Bentivoglio with Martin and Bryce Reddick assisting.
At 30:51, Lightning netminder Patrick Killeen was called for tripping and unsportsmanlike conduct on the same play and the Devils powerplay made him pay when Gleason Fournier banged in a rebound to make it 4-2 at 14:31 with Ulmer picking up the assist.