Cardiff Devils aim to end their long wait for play-offs success at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham this weekend.

Elite League champions Devils play Fife Flyers in their semi-final with the winners taking on Sheffield Steelers or Nottingham Panthers on Sunday.

Devils lost after sudden death overtime against Steelers in last season’s play-off final and it’s been almost 20 years since they last won this trophy.

“It was a tough, heartbreaking way to lose the final and all the guys who were involved will have that feeling driving them on to go one better this time,” says Devils D-man Mark Richardson.

“All the returning guys going into this weekend are going to have that feeling in the back of their minds and we want to be on the other end of that.

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“Obviously, the play-offs are short, but exciting.  For everyone, it’s a great event and I’m delighted to be going back.  Hopefully we can go one step further this time.

“The only pressure is on ourselves to go out and try and win every trophy.  They come down to one-off games where any team can beat anyone.

“You’ve just got to go out and enjoy it, give it our all and we know if we do that, we have a chance.

“It will be a good game with Fife and they have a strong team.  I don’t think where they finished in the league is a reflection of their whole season.

“They had injury troubles near the end that hurt them, but they’ve got some great players in there.

“As a team, we only see them four times a year, but each meeting was a tough one and I expect no different.

“We played Dundee in last year’s semi-final and we’ll be looking for a different start after going 2-0 down in the first period.

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“It wasn’t ideal, but I can see it being similar. Fife will come out hard, like Dundee did and they’ve got nothing to lose playing the league champions so we just have to be ready.”

Canadian forward Chase Schaber is in the Fife Flyers team and he says: “Devils are a big team, well structured.

“They come at you hard and fast. We’ll have to use our speed against them and we’ll have to have everybody going.

“When we play at our best we give ourselves a good chance.”

The PredictorBet play-off semi-final  are being played at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham with Devils v Flyers on the ice first at 1pm.

That is followed by Steelers v Panthers (5pm) when Nottingham’s Corey Neilson sets out to mark his final weekend as host club’s head coach.

Sheffield are the play-off trophy holds, having edged out Cardiff a year ago, while Neilson is intent on leaving Nottingham on a winning note.

Cardiff began last year’s finals weekend against another Scottish team in Dundee Stars and although went down 2-0 after the first period, recovered to win and go into the final.

This is Fife’s third appearance at the finals weekend in five years and they are the most successful Scottish side in this competition.

Flyers are in confident mood after their dramatic win against Manchester Storm in the quarter-finals when they fought back from 4-1 down after the first leg to win 6-5 on aggregate.

ELITE LEAGUE FINAL STANDINGS

Regular 2017

Rk	Team	GP	W	L	OTL	SOL	WPCT	Pts
1	Cardiff Devils	56	41	12	1	2	.759	85
2	Manchester Storm	56	35	16	3	2	.670	75
3	Sheffield Steelers	56	34	19	2	1	.634	71
4	Nottingham Panthers	56	33	18	2	3	.634	71
5	Belfast Giants	56	34	20	2	0	.625	70
6	Guildford Flames	56	30	17	5	4	.616	69
7	Fife Flyers	56	33	21	1	1	.607	68
8	Coventry Blaze	56	25	26	4	1	.491	55
9	Braehead Clan	56	24	26	5	1	.482	54
10	Dundee Stars	56	22	30	3	1	.429	48
11	Milton Keynes Lightning	56	20	34	1	1	.375	42
12	Edinburgh Capitals	56	5	50	0	1	.098	11