Solent Devils held off defending cup champions, Wightlink Raiders, in an edge of your seat match in Gosport on Sunday night. Sam Calder got his first start in the Devils net of the 2015/16 season, and definitely impressed a lot of people with his 93.88% of shots saved throughout the game.
Photos courtesy of tombarnettphotography.co.uk
In addition to Calder at the back being great, the Devils defence performed well and even the forwards made a concerted effort at getting back to help in their zone, in addition to some fantastic play in the Raiders zone.
From the moment the puck dropped, everyone knew that this local derby would be a match worth watching, with fast, physical play clearly being on the programme for both teams, with a huge emphasis on protection of the netminders.
The Devils started celebrating early, only to have their celebrations squashed, as, from a pass from George Norcliffe to Richard Facey was sent in to the net, for the goal to be disallowed as the referee decided the goal was out of position.
This was obviously a wakeup call for the Raiders, who seemed to think they were coming to Gosport for an easy evening, and five minutes later Ryan Webb managed to get the first goal up on the boards as he got the puck past Calder in the Devils goal.
This did not dissuade the Devils, however, and just before the 10 minute mark there was a turnover in the Devils zone, the puck was rapidly taken down the ice before the Raiders could recover properly and Monty Gailer managed to get the puck through to Norcliffe, who continued his excellent form this season and levelled the score.
As this physical game progressed, Raider, Ben Paynter was sent to the sinbin on a two minute interference call, however, the referee decided that the words uttered as Paynter made his way over for a sit down were not the most sportsman like, and he was awarded an additional ten minutes for abuse of an official.
Photos courtesy of tombarnettphotography.co.uk
Paynter didn’t remain on his own in the sinbin the entire time, and just after the 17 minute mark, Alex Sampford was sent out on a roughing call.
The Devils, finding themselves on the man advantage, managed to capitalise when Mitch Murray picked up the puck in the centre and went on a run all the way to the Raiders goal. Unfortunately for Murray, his shot was knocked wide by Matthew Colclough, fortunately, however, Mason Wild had followed Murray down the ice and managed to snag the rebound and with the netminder unable to recover in time, put the Devils ahead by a goal.
Four minutes in to the second period, Colclough decided to leave the Raiders goal and was replaced by Aaron Craft. When play resumed, it didn’t last long before a small fight broke out, which was started from something between Mason Wild and Danny Ingoldsby, with Wild getting 2+2 in the sinbin, and Ingoldsby being absent from the Raiders line up for an additional 2 minutes, as the Refs (and the crowd) agreed that he had been the instigator of the fight.
Most of the rest of the second period, was amazing hockey, with fantastic play from both teams, however the flow was interrupted again two minutes before the break, when Domink Hegyi with a late – and hard hitting – challenge on Ingoldsby obviously upset the rest of the Raiders and the refs ended up in the middle of all ten skaters from each team as they went in to defend their respective team member.
The fallout from this, was Hegyi having to spend two minutes in the sinbin, with the Raiders losing Sampford and Tribe for two minutes each.
These were closely followed, by Jaroslav Cesky who was sent off for kneeing, giving the Devils a 5 on 3 advantage for just over a minute. Unfortunately, they couldn’t use this time to increase their lead over the Raiders, and went in to the second break with the score staying at 2-1.
A minute and a half in to the third, the referee gave the Raiders a penalty shot, as during a frantic scramble in front of the Devils goal, Alex Cole ended up laying on the puck. Jaroslav Cesky stepped up, and managed to go one on one with Calder, beating him on his stick side and tying the game again.
Despite the Devils best efforts, especially those of big D-man Ben Lock and forward Richard Facey, the Raiders managed to put themselves in to the lead after a face off in the Devils zone, with some good passing around the area to create some space, Tribe and Cesky managed to get a gap large enough for Raiders captain, Nick Compton, to get in to position to impressively put the Raiders back in to the lead.
Still battling hard, however, the Devils spent almost the whole of the next two minutes doing whatever they could to keep the puck deep in the Raiders zone, when head coach, Alex Murray, managed to intercept a Raiders pass and went on to beat Craft for the first time since he came on to the ice.
As if to mirror the Devils bad luck at the start of the game, just over two minutes from the final buzzer, the Raiders had a goal disallowed as the Devils goal had been knocked out of position.
Even after this, the game remained one where everyone was on the edge of their seat, but no matter how hard either team battled, they just couldn’t get one over on the other and at the end of the game the score stood at 3-3.
The next home game, is Sunday 11th October at 7pm, as the Devils host Milton Keynes Thunder at Gosport Ice Arena.
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