Devils Penalty Shots Crown Giants Champions v Steelers: Game Recap

Sunday 16th February 2013 - Cardiff Devils (20-20-1) v Sheffield Steelers (22-14-3) @ Cardiff Bay Ice Rink. Face off: 6pm

A win of any kind for Cardiff and a defeat for Dundee Stars in regulation would crown Belfast Giants champions with still over a month to play of league matches.

Cardiff would score the first goal of the night on the delayed penalty after Jake Morrisette would open the scoring after assists from the captain Mac Faulkner and Matthew Myers at 8:41 in the game. and Sheffield would have the only power play of the first period as Tyson Marsh was called for charging on 12:55 but Steelers wouldn't be able to make it count and would go into the 1st Interval 1-0 down in Cardiff.

Sheffield came out for the second period on the front foot and with Chris Jones in the penalty box for slashing allowed Chad Langlais to pop up at 23:10 to score the equalising goal on the power play after assists from Jeff Legue and Maxime Lacroix and then not long after that Sheffield would get another power play attempt with Tyson Marsh in the box for a high stick but they wouldn't be able to score in the man advantage but unfortunately for the Sheffield Steelers player/coach and captain Steven Goertzen goes down injured after a collision with a Cardiff player and eventually left the ice with assistant and went straight to the medical room. Devils would have two power play attempts as Danny Meyers and Lacroix were both called for slashing and on the second man advantage Mac Faulkner put the Devils back ahead with assists being credited to Ziga Svete and Andrew Lord and then just two minutes later on 37:47 Tim Spencer were level the score assisted by Langlais and Phillips. There would be a "fight" between Baldwin and Myers where both would receive five minute penalties and as well as some 4 on 4 hockey as Lacroix and Plumpton were deemed to be roughing followed by Dustin Kohn which left Cardiff to finish the period on the power play but it would still be level at 2-2.

Going into the third period there was no goals added to the score line only there power play chances one for the Steelers as Brad Plumton went for cross checking and then it was two chances for Cardiff as Drew Fata was called for hooking and Nate DiCasmirro was called for tripping but still no goals were added and the game would go to overtime where still there was no goals and it only needed a Cardiff win to secure Belfast Giants the league title.

So the game went to penalty shots and for the Steelers Chris Blight and Jeff Legue would not be able to beat Kosowski but both Morrisette and Birbraer would score to secure Devils the second point and hand the Elite League championship to Belfast.

FINAL SCORE: Cardiff Devils 3-2 Sheffield Steelers (PS)

Boxscore (1st-2nd-3rd-OT-[PIM]-{PP}-S)
Cardiff     - 1-1-0-0-[15]-{1/5}-35
Sheffield   - 0-2-0-0-[17]-{1/4}-30

Cardiff Man of the Match: #8 Matthew Myers
Sheffield Man of the Match: #2 Chad Langlais

Referee: #26 Dean Smith
Referee:
Linesman: #15 Sam Motton
Linesman: #14 James Kavanagh

Sheffield go down on the penalty shots in Cardiff and not for the first time this season and it was a defeat that officially crowned the Belfast Giants as the champions of the 2013/2014 Elite League where they have been the most consistent team all season only losing a total of 7 games in the league to date.

Thanks for reading guys. Any questions or comments please get in contact with the Frozen Steel Team on this article or via Twitter:-
@IAmMcCausland
@TomWalkeden
@AwkwardGinge
@FrozenSteelBlog

or Email the team at frozen.steel.91@gmail.com

Keep Supporting The Boys!!

Tom