EIHL Game Report: Coventry Blaze 7 Hull Stingrays 4

GENTING Casino Coventry Blaze got their first win in the Challenge Cup on Sunday night, defeating the Rapid Solicitors Hull Stingrays 7-4 at the Skydome.

The defeat leaves Hull pointless at the bottom of the group after four games played, with the Blaze achieving one win and one loss in their two outings.

Suspension to Kevin Harvey saw Dale White promoted to the second line with Russ Cowley staying in defence while the Blaze await the arrival of Michael Devin. Hull arrived at full strength and included three former Blaze players in their line up (Jeff Smith, Derek Campbell and Coach Sylvain Cloutier). Coventry piled on the pressure early with the top line of the Henrich brothers (Adam & Michael) and Ashley Tait causing many problems.

It was starting to look like the Blaze had run into a hot goalie for the second night running as Ben Bowns made several impressive saves early on. The top line finally broke through on 10.50 with A. Henrich scoring from Tait and M. Henrich. Just one second later, Matt Selby and Bobby Chamberlain fought, with Chamberlain hanging on and staying upright for far longer than expected. At this stage it looked like Blaze were in the ascendancy and nothing would hold them back.

This was not the case just three minutes later when Mike Zacharias unexpectedly left the ice to be replaced by back up Adam Goss. Hull were lifted by the chance of firing pucks at the Blaze number two and picked up their game, although couldn’t find a way through in the first period. The second started off much the same as the end of the first period but the Blaze managed to extend their lead to two with a powerplay marker from Ryan Ginand at 24.53.
Hull closed the gap quickly with two goals from Jason SIlverthorn (25.56) and Guillaume Doucet (29.55); the latter of which was a nice forehand-backhand move lifted over the shoulder of Goss, who stood little chance. An equally impressive highlight-reel goal came from Michael Henrich at 38.51 on the powerplay, the Blaze forward ripping a shot clean into the back of the net from the blue line.

It looked like the Blaze were going at the end of the second one goal ahead, however Matt Davies scored right on the buzzer. It appeared to the crowd as if the puck crossed the line after time had expired, but referee Dean Smith thought differently and awarded the goal. It will be interesting to see if the Blaze webcast were able to capture the incident and determine who was right. In any event, it was a good finish by the British forward.

With one period left and the game poised at 3-3, it could have gone either way. Blaze Head Coach Matt Söderström gave Coventry a talking to in the break and they came out with renewed impetus. This was marked on the scoreboard with Kenny Källström (41.43) and Ryan Ginand (42.44) both scoring on the powerplay, taking the total of Coventry goals with the man advantage on the night to four.

Doucet pulled one back for Hull on 46.03 but Blaze managed to solidify and confirm their victory with goals from A. Henrich (47.18) and Tait (53.05). Tait’s goal is one that Bowns will want back after making a simple error and not covering at his near post correctly and leaving a large gap in the five hole for Tait to aim at. From then on, Blaze took their foot off the gas a little, making sure that the game was seen out without incident and perhaps further injury.

Speaking after the game, Blaze man-of-the-match Adam Henrich (2 goals, 3 assists) spoke about his proficient partnership with his line mates, “It’s been good. It’s easy to play on the same line as my brother but it works well with Ash (Tait) because we’re all veterans and we know the game really well. It also helps us because we have two scoring lines on the team whereas we maybe didn’t at the end of last season.”

Coach Matt Söderström was however quick to heap praise on his backup netminder, “I was really pleased with Gossy. We knew that Mike (Zacharias) might not make it through the game so he knew he had to be ready. He played really well and gave us a chance to win. I don’t think there’s any netminder in the league who’d have saved the goals he conceded tonight; they were good goals. The injury to Mike is minor. We’ve only got one game next weekend and we’ll give him a training session off and he should be good to go. However, Gossy showed us tonight that he can perform if we need him to.”

The Blaze are next in action on Sunday 29th September at home to the surprise team so far of the season and current league leaders, the Dundee Stars. Blaze will be hoping to turnaround their only league defeat of the season so far against the Scottish side.