Cardiff Devils 2-3 Hull Stingrays
A 39 save effort from netminder Ben Bowns and two more goals from leading scorer Jereme Tendler tonight helped the Hull Stingrays to their third victory of the season against the Cardiff Devils by way of a 3-2 win in South Wales.
With Jeff Smith sitting out his third consecutive game through injury, Estonian defenceman Dmitri Rodin made his return to the Stingrays line-up after signing from the English Premier League on Thursday.
The first action of the fixture saw Rays enforcer Ryan Hand and his Cardiff counterpart Jesse Gimblett re-acquaint themselves - having fought last time out in Cardiff - dropping the gloves just three seconds in.
With the not-so pleasantries exchanged, the Devils took a 1-0 lead through Ben Davies after just 43 seconds. Chris Blight then instigated the games' second fight, dropping the gloves with Janis Ozolins before a Mac Faulkner goal doubled the home sides lead, shorthanded on 8.44.
The Rays struck back with their own shorthanded marker on 11.35 as Jereme Tendler netted his 25th of the season before Sylvain Cloutier leveled the score at 2-2 with a close range tap in on a pass from Tom Squires after 15.22.
Tendler then gave the Rays an unlikely 3-2 lead with his sixth goal in three games and 26th of the season with less than a minute and a half remaining in the first period scoring their third of the game on just seven shots.
Having outshot the Rays 12-7 in the first period, the Devils outshot the Stingray further in the middle stanza, with Bowns turning away all 13 shots in the Stingrays net, Cardiff keeper Phil Osaer saving all six shots fired at him.
The Devils plied more pressure on the visitors in the final period, however, Bowns again came up huge, saving 16 more shots as the Rays killed the game off and sealed a big win - their third this season - against side from South Wales.
As well as their third victory of the season against the Devils, the win is the Cloutier's sides first of the league campaign against an Erhardt Conference side. The Rays have now claimed seven points from an available eight against Cardiff this season.
They now return home from South Wales to face the Sheffield Steelers in a crunch Yorkshire derby.
