Cardiff Devils are ready to stir up a Storm this weekend – and they’ll be seeing Stars in Cardiff Bay on Sunday.
Captain Jake Morissette and his team returned from Scotland in positive mood after earning a 5-3 Elite League win against Edinburgh Capitals at Murrayfield.
Matt Pope inspired a Devils comeback with two goals and two assists after they had fallen 2-0 down after the first period.
Now Mo’s men travel to Manchester Storm on Saturday before entertaining Dundee Stars at Ice Arena Wales the next evening (6pm).
Caps took an early lead in Scotland when a sloppy defensive play led to Mike Cazzola firing past Ben Bowns 24 seconds into the game.
The home team made it 2-0 thanks to Igor Valeyev at nine minutes eight seconds and it could have been worse, but two big saves from Bowns late in the period kept the deficit at two.
The second period was all Devils with Pope leading the charge. Joey Martin set up Pope four minutes into the period to pull one back and then Pope pounced on a loose puck and hammered the puck past netminder Pavel Shegalo to tie the game at 33-43.
Less than a minute later Patrick Asselin finished off a dominating shift for the Devils when Andrew Hotham and Pope combined to set him up for the go-ahead goal at 34-10. The Devils scored their 4th goal at 35:54 with Pope setting up Justin Faryna this time to make it 4-2.
The third period saw the Capitals pull back a goal when Callum Boyd opted to shoot on a two-on-one against Bowns and fired a bullet past the Devils’ netminder at 43-01.
Devils regained their two-goal lead when Matthew Myers forced a turnover and fed Drew Paris, who blasted the puck past Shegalo to make it 5-3 with just under 15 minutes to play.
The Welsh team were without suspended Gleason Fournier plus injured trio Joey Haddad, Mark Louis and Craig Moore.
Fournier has now served his one-match ban and returns to the ice this weekend.
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Match stats v Caps:
Scorers, Caps: Mike Cazzola 1+0, Igor Valeyev 1+0, Callum Boyd 1+0, Dylan Anderson 0+1, Pavel Vorobyev 0+1, Juris Upitis 0+1, Sergei Banashkov 0+1.
Devils: Matt Pope 2+2, Patrick Asselin 1+0, Justin Faryna 1+0, Drew Paris 1+1, Tyson Strachan 0+1, Joey Martin 0+1, Andrew Hotham 0+2, Josh Batch 0+1, Matthew Myers 0+1.
Period scores (Caps first): 2-0; 0-4 (2-4); 1-1 (3-5).
Shots on goal: Caps (on Bowns) 11+5+9=25; Devils (on Shegalo) 13+13+12=38.
Powerplays: Caps 0/0; Devils 0/1.
Penalties in minutes: Caps 2+0+0=2; Devils 0+0+0=0
Attendance: 630
Referee: Neil Wilson
Stars of the game: Caps, Callum Boyd; Devils, Matt Pope