Cardiff Devils ready for Sheffield Steelers title test as unrelenting season continues

Cardiff Devils can rise to the top of the Elite Ice Hockey League [EIHL] on Saturday, by beating current leaders Sheffield Steelers.

It is nearly five months since the Devils squad flew in from all over Europe and North America to train for the first time together on a Saturday night in mid-August.

While other EIHL teams were about to prepare for the domestic season, the newly formed Devils roster faced one of the better sides in European hockey, Adler Mannheim, in the Champions Hockey League [CHL] just 12 days after that first meeting at the Ice Arena Wales.

The schedule for them since has been unforgiving, with Devils playing another 29 games in 15 weeks of pre-season, CHL, EIHL and Challenge Cup matches with some mixed results.

That said, Cardiff head coach Jarrod Skalde is hugely positive about his time with the club so far.

"It's been great, the team that we've been able to assemble, the characters and the quality of guys off the ice has been amazing," said Skalde, who took the reins in September 2020.

"It's a pleasure to come into the rink every day and our on-ice product has been improving."

The results in October to mid-November for the Devils were erratic with six wins and seven defeats, which included a 3-0 loss at home to Nottingham Panthers.

Seemingly the team were struggling to score goals, as they led the league in the number of shots on goal but were in seventh place for the goals-per-game ratio.

Skalde said: "It's one of those things in sports and you don't know, you just go through those stretches.

"As a coach you've been in those situations before and the first thing you do is that you don't talk about it - it's the last thing you talk about.

"It's a mental thing, you don't overstress it, you focus on other areas of your game that need to be improved and the offence will come from there."

When they hosted Guildford Flames on 13 November in the Challenge Cup Group B game, the Devils were facing a potential third consecutive loss. Guildford led the game twice by two goals, hitting 71 shots.

Eventually the Devils managed to battle back to beat the Flames in a shootout, with the players' relief at the win clearly palpable.

"It was a huge relief to get that win. We knew what was on the line there, we wanted to end our losing skid and get that top seed [in the Challenge Cup group] to position ourselves moving forward," said Skalde.

For the squad that victory was similar to taking the lid off a pressure cooker with the Devils scoring 15 goals in the next three games, including a 5-0 win away at Sheffield.

The Devils now find themselves in second spot in the EIHL a point behind the Steelers who visit Cardiff on Saturday for the first time since their Challenge Cup win in March 2020.

That game that ended up being the last hockey match played in the UK before the league was cancelled due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Skalde said: "They're going to come in hard, they know what happened last time up there and they won't forget that. We anticipate a team coming in aggressive, playing hard and playing fast and we are going to have to match that.

"We know how big it is and how competitive they are and the rivalry is there, We're going to work on our special teams and D-zone coverage and be ready for Saturday night."