{"id":6787,"date":"2015-03-27T11:22:08","date_gmt":"2015-03-27T11:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/?p=6787"},"modified":"2015-03-27T11:22:08","modified_gmt":"2015-03-27T11:22:08","slug":"elite-league-cardiff-devils-vs-belfast-giants-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2015\/03\/27\/elite-league-cardiff-devils-vs-belfast-giants-preview\/","title":{"rendered":"Elite League: Cardiff Devils vs Belfast Giants preview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/TB_DEVILS.jpeg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6815\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/TB_DEVILS-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"TB_DEVILS\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-6815\" src=\"http:\/\/cardiffian.jomec.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/TB_DEVILS-300x200.jpeg\" alt=\"TB_DEVILS\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cardiffdevils.com\/\">CARDIFF Devils<\/a>\u00a0correspondent Tom Houghton assesses the team&#8217;s fortunes as they head over to face the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.belfastgiants.com\/\">Belfast Giants<\/a>\u00a0 in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eliteleague.co.uk\/\">Elite League<\/a> playoffs tonight.<br \/>\nThe Devils are looking to pick up their second piece of silverware as they begin their play-off campaign.<br \/>\nThe first leg of the quarter final in Northern Ireland will be followed by the second in Cardiff on Sunday, meaning little respite for both teams. The winners will qualify for the Elite League play-off finals in Nottingham next weekend. And Devils will not be taking this weekend\u2019s opponents lightly.<br \/>\nGiants finished their regular season strongly, claiming comfortable wins over Coventry Blaze and Fife Flyers, meaning Devils will have to be on top form to overcome the northern Irish side. Giants recovered to finish fifth having experienced a more mixed season, often relying on individual performers Ray Sawada and Carsen Chubak playing crucial roles in much of their good work.<br \/>\nMany Giants fans have cited the departure of former general manager Todd Kelman to Cardiff Devils as the reason for their struggles this season, so they will be out for revenge. The match is a repeat of the 2010 final, with Giants winning on that occasion. And Devils will be looking to put recent playoff final disappointment behind them.<br \/>\nA statistic player-coach Andrew Lord won\u2019t want his players to dwell too much upon this campaign is that they finished runners up three years in a row following that defeat.<br \/>\nA strikingly similar statistic, however, is that Giants have been playoff final runners up in the last two seasons, so they will be keen to turn around fortunes and get their hands on the trophy.<br \/>\nAlthough their form this season may not have been stellar, Belfast appear to have been wounded Giants for most of this campaign, and last season\u2019s Elite League winners will be disappointed they have not shown the same guile in this year\u2019s competition.<br \/>\nThey are three-times winners and will surely recover that winning form at some point, but the Cardiff side will be hoping that doesn\u2019t happen this weekend. Devils will be looking to capitalize upon the good fortunes of individual players too.<br \/>\nFour Devils players were called up to the Great Britain ice hockey squad on Tuesday for April\u2019s World Championship, meaning a good week for goaltender Ben Bowns, defencemen Josh Batch and Mark Richardson, and forward Matt Myers.<br \/>\nIn Giant\u2019s imposing 8,000 seater Odyssey Arena, Devils will be confident that any score within one or two points winning or losing margin will give them confidence they can get through to finals weekend.<br \/>\nAfter having won the Challenge Cup and having narrowly missed out on the Elite League title to Sheffield Steelers, the team have exceeded all expectations this season. However an early playoff exit would leave a sour taste for Lord and his men.<br \/>\nBut if they can replicate their impressive home form at the Big Blue Tent this season, they will be adamant they can overcome any reasonable margin and take a big step towards taking home a title they have not won since the league\u2019s instalment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CARDIFF Devils\u00a0correspondent Tom Houghton assesses the team&#8217;s fortunes as they head over to face the Belfast Giants\u00a0 in the Elite League playoffs tonight. The Devils are looking to pick up their second piece of silverware as they begin their play-off campaign. The first leg of the quarter final in Northern Ireland will be followed by the second in Cardiff on Sunday, meaning little respite for both teams. The winners will qualify for the Elite League play-off finals in Nottingham next [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":248,"featured_media":6800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63,4,292],"tags":[3148,59,1185],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-6787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ice-hockey-sport","category-sport","category-uncategorized","tag-belfast-giants","tag-cardiff-devils","tag-ice-hockey"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Elite League: Cardiff Devils vs Belfast Giants preview - The Cardiffian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/thecardiffian\/2015\/03\/27\/elite-league-cardiff-devils-vs-belfast-giants-preview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Elite League: Cardiff Devils vs Belfast Giants preview - The Cardiffian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"CARDIFF Devils\u00a0correspondent Tom Houghton assesses the team&#8217;s fortunes as they head over to face the Belfast Giants\u00a0 in the Elite League playoffs tonight. 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