Cardiff Devils Blowing Up A Storm In Their Quest For Elite League Glory

Cardiff Devils have two highly potent forward lines plus excellent back-up lines as they fire up their quest for Elite League honours this season.

Joey Martin, Jake Morissette and Patrick Asselin are undoubtedly the first line, while Chris Culligan, Layne Ulmer and Sean Bentivoglio are shaping up as a highly dangerous trio.

Matthew Myers, Guillaume Doucet and Joey Haddad are also in-form and more than capable of putting up big numbers, while Patrick Bordeleau and David Brine are key components on an impressive fourth line alongside Luke Piggott or Chris Jones.

Devils are in Elite League action on Friday evening when Manchester Storm are visitors to Ice Arena Wales (7pm).

They then travel to play Coventry Blaze at the Skydome on Boxing Day (6pm) and those teams meet again in Cardiff Bay on Sunday, December 27 (7.30pm), completing a gruelling three Elite League matches in five days.

Man of the match Culligan returned to action after injury for Devils midweek Challenge Cup win against Dundee Stars and head coach Andrew Lord said: “They (Culligan/Ulmer/Bentivoglio) did a great job. Culli is a phenomenal player whose skating ability adds a further dimension to his forwards.

“He’s smart and always seems to make the right play, simple and effective.”

Lord looks certain to be on the bench coaching for the clash with Manchester and says: “The Christmas schedule is fun. Attendances are good and the atmosphere is excellent.

“Manchester have six skating defencemen who can join the players plus dangerous forwards and a goaltender who can get hot. We’ll be ready for what is going to be a tough match.”

Devils must arrange the two legs of their Challenge Cup semi-final against Belfast Giants early in the New Year and Lord says: “That semi-final is going to be fun for the fans and with teams.

“Belfast have a lot of similar qualities to the Devils in terms of speed, size, experience and more. They are well coach, have an extremely deep team and a British goaltender (Stephen Murphy) just like Devils (Ben Bowns).

“Those games will be another battle. I can’t wait.”

Face-off times for Devils three home games between now and New Year’s Day are: Friday, December 23 v Manchester Storm (League, 7pm); Tuesday, December 27 v Coventry Blaze (League, 7.30pm); Sunday, January 1 v Dundee Stars (League, 4pm).

Ticket information is available via the club’s official website or from the hotline on 0800 0842 666.