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Weekend Preview – Week 10

WEEK 10 of the 2023/24 Elite Ice Hockey League season and the Flyers welcome the Manchester Storm to the Fife Ice Arena on Saturday night for their second meeting this season before making the long trip to Cardiff on Sunday night to meet the Devils, the only team they have not yet played this season.

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 25th v MANCHESTER STORM @ FIFE ICE ARENA – FACE OFF 7.15pm

Recent Form Guide

Last weekend the Storm climbed to third in the table and have had some impressive results so far this season. They opened their league campaign by taking points in their first four games, a win in Nottingham was followed by a win at home against the Stars. Two road games yielded a point in each with a shootout loss on Tayside and an overtime loss in Guildford. Remarkably the Storm have already completed their three visits to the Cardiff Devils in regular season play the first of which handed them their first regulation loss, twenty four hours later and the Devils repeated their success in Altrincham. The Flyers were next up at home for Storm as they got back on track with a shutout win. A second visit to Wales saw the Storm return with two points after a 3-1 win but the following night they were downed 5-1 at home against the Belfast Giants. The following weekend they were at the Devils once again and eked out a point in an overtime defeat. Last weekend the Giants visited Altrincham where the Storm inflicted a fourth consecutive defeat on the defending Champions. Following the withdrawal of the Panthers from the Challenge Cup the Storm look likely to secure the final knockout round place as they have one game remaining against the Sheffield Steelers, there is still a mathematical scenario that could still see the Dundee Stars qualify. In the Cup games played a 7-4 win over the Panthers has been the Storm’s biggest win of the season so far but on the flipside is a 6-1 reverse, their heaviest defeat this term, against the Steelers who have won all three meetings.

Last League Visit from Storm

Overall Elite League Home Record Against Storm

P 22 W 13 L 9 F 78 A 62

Number Crunching

The Flyers will be looking to avenge the earlier defeat to the Storm in Altrincham this season when they were shutout.

After winning four in a row against the Storm the Flyers have lost their last two against Manchester which have both been on the road.

The last visit from Manchester was in front of the TV cameras and Flyers recorded their 4th shutout against the Storm in all EIHL competitions, the third on home ice and the third time Shane Owen has blanked the Storm in his Flyers career.

The Storm also have four shutouts against the Flyers with three of those being recorded on their own ice.

The Flyers and Storm have a very even record in EIHL match ups with the Storm ahead on wins 24-23 and the Flyers ahead on goals 153-150.

The Storm are the only EIHL team that the Flyers have yet to have a player register a hat trick against.

Pic Credit Jillian McFarlane and Derek Young

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 26th v CARDIFF DEVILS @ VINDICO ARENA – FACE OFF 6.00pm

Recent Form Guide

The Devils are the final team that the Flyers have to meet this season and they come into the weekend having won their last four EIHL games and sitting a couple of points behind the league leading Sheffield Steelers.

The Devils play their final game at home in their Challenge Cup group before hosting the Flyers having beaten the Coventry Blaze in midweek and they will be one of the seeded teams in the knockout stages as group winners. Their only defeat from their seven games so far came in late September when they went down 4-2 to the Coventry Blaze which is also their biggest defeat so far this season. They have three wins against both Coventry and Guildford. In the league the Devils opened up with a home win against the Glasgow Clan before a big win in Sheffield against the Steelers. The following weekend however they lost back to back games going down in Nottingham before losing at home to the Belfast Giants. They got back on track with wins home and away against the Manchester Storm and as stated above they have subsequently completed their home fixtures against the Storm with a loss and an overtime win in Cardiff. Their biggest win of the season so far came in Glasgow when they blanked the Clan 7-0 and in their last league outing a fortnight ago they won 3-2 in Belfast. Last weekend they were on Continental Cup action in France. In their first game on Friday night they lost 5-4 to Nomad from Kazakhstan before bouncing back on Saturday to beat Latvian side Zemgale Jelgava 5-2. They went into Sunday’s game against the hosts in Grenoble knowing a win would see them through to the Final and a Justin Crandall strike along with a shutout for Ben Bowns got the job done. They join Nomad, Denmark’s Herning Blue Fox and Polish side Katowice in the mid-January final with the venue still to be decided.

Last League Visit to Devils

Overall Elite League Away Record Against Devils

P 27 W 4 L 23 F 55 A 123

Number Crunching

The Flyers will be looking to end their ten game losing sequence in Cardiff with their last win against Devils on their home ice coming on the 7th November 2018 when they won 5-4 in overtime with goals from Joe Basaraba, Paul Crowder, Mike Cazzola, Danick Gauthier and Brett Bulmer.

Last season the Devils won all six of the match ups so the Flyers will also be looking to break that losing streak.

Flyers were shutout on their last visit to the Cardiff, the 9th time in all EIHL competitions that they have been blanked by the Devils. Flyers have recorded one shutout against the Devils.

The Devils have conceded fewest powerplay goals per game and scored most even strength goals per game this season.

Pic Credit Cardiff Devils