Devils earn one-goal aggregate lead on the road

Photo: Al Goold

Cardiff Devils came back from two goals take to take a 4-3 aggregate lead into their Challenge Cup Final second leg next week.

The Devils, who scored seven without reply on their last visit to Glasgow, needed only 43 seconds for Brandon Alderson to open the scoring with the rebound tap-in off a Tyler Busch shot. However, team with the hottest powerplay in league play, Clan, certainly put that to good use in the opening period of this cup encounter. Darien Craighead picked is spot past a screened Tyler Wall to level the game at 8:05, before a Mike Pelech goal was given after a lengthy video review at 12:03. Jake bolton let a slapshot fly from the point at 15:59 to put Clan 3-1 up with all three goals being scored on the powerplay.

The Devils ended the period two skaters short with Chad Pietroniero ejected for a bad hit on Zach Vinnell, while Josh Batch shout the puck out of bounds at 18:10 for a minor penalty. Vinnell did not return to the game.

Cardiff, the higher seeds in this tie from the Group Stage, were level inside 12 second-period minutes. Having killed off the major penalty, Trevor Cox pulled the score back to 3-2 4:14 into the second with the back-post finished from a Cole Sanford Feed. Alderson then grabbed his second of the game to tie things up at 31:32 while Clan had to survive a major penalty on Reid Petryk called at 39:16.

Almost 48 minutes after having initially taken the lead in the game, Cardiff were back ahead with Cox's second of the night - the goal that gives them the one-goal lead in next week's second leg.