Cardiff Devils stayed second and extended the gap over third place to a point with a 5-0 win over Sheffield Steelers on Wednesday night at the Vindico Arena.
The Steelers fell to fourth with the defeat, combined with Nottingham’s win elsewhere
The opening period took just over 24 minutes to complete with very few stoppages. The first whistle of the game came when the Devils took the lead at 8:41 through Kris Kontos, slotting home from Cole Sanford’s excellent pass on an odd-man rush.
Joey Martin drew a strong save from Matt Greenfield as the Devils pushed for a second, while the Steelers’ netminder also denied Riley Brandt on a breakaway and reacted well to the rebound to keep the game at 1-0. However, Cardiff doubled their lead with 7.9 seconds left in the period when Martin followed up his own rebound after an initial one-timer was saved.
After sustained pressure early in the third, the Devils forced a turnover and broke two-on-one, with Kontos finding Sanford at the back post to make it 3-0.
Brett Perlini extended the lead with just over eight minutes to play, scoring his sixth goal in as many games after following up Brandt’s effort. Josh MacDonald came close to adding another shortly after but hit the post after rounding Greenfield.
Following a series of scrums, the last involving Mitchell Heard and Jimmy Oligny, which resulted in multiple misconduct penalties, Nolan Yaremko added a fifth inside the final five minutes to complete the scoring.
Photo: James Assinder
