Devils delight on St. David's Day with Davies captaining team
Photo: James Assinder
Cardiff Devils marked St. David's Day with special jerseys and a six-goal shutout win over Fife Flyers to cap an excellent evening in the Welsh capital. A sold-out 3,110 Vindico Arena crowd saw it happen.
"It was a hell of an honour to be captain of my hometown club,” began Ben Davies, who was given the C with Mark Richardson not in the line-up. “I’ve been supporting the Devils since I was six-years old, and that was very special and something I’ll be very proud looking back on.
“We’ve had a few bad results of late so to come back to winning ways was good. We have a Cup Final coming up now in 10 days so we wanted to correct some wrongs and go form there."
The Devils led by two after 20 minutes against a short-benched Flyers roster. It took 92 seconds for Josh MacDonald to open the scoring, although Brett Perlini made sure the puck went over the line if it hadn’t already. Ryan Barrow had a breakaway saved, while Ben Almquist netted his first for the Devils at 12:57. 34 seconds later the Flyers were awarded a penalty shot, but Lucas Chiodo couldn’t beat Ben Bowns.
As the teams entered the second period, Cardiff continued to rain shots on Fife’s net, and it didn't take long for the third goal of the night to go the way of the home team after Brett Perlini pulled off an impressive slapshot that smashed into the back of the net at the 5:17 mark. To add to the goal count, Cole Sanford made his way onto the scoreboard following a wrist shot into the net at 11:30, forcing a 4-0 lead over the Flyers.
Joey Martin fired home a powerplay goal 7:40 into period three, while Davies and Sam Duggan assisted Riley Brandt's first goal since December to cap off a 6-0 win.
"The Welsh as a nation are very proud and to be able to celebrate St. David’s Day with a special jersey like that, I think it’s the first time we’ve had them, was very cool," added Davies. "We have no game on Sunday so we can have a rest and then get back working at it next week. We’re working towards that Cup Final, that’s a big thing for us right now."
