Devils defeat Coventry for 11th league win in a row

The Devils made it 11 league wins in a row on Wednesday Night with a hard-fought victory over the Coventry Blaze.

After a scoreless opening period, it was Coventry who opened the scoring just past the midway point of the game. Blaze forward Danick Paquette cut across the ice just in front of the Devils defence and ripped a shot over the shoulder of Ben Bowns to make it 1-0 for the home side at 32:00.  The score remained 1-0 in favour of the Blaze after 40 minutes of play.

Gleason Fournier equalised for the Devils just 2:46 into the final period.  He picked up the puck in his own zone and went coast to coast, finishing with a rifle that went top shelf past Kevin Nastiuk to tie the game at 1-1.  A poor pinch by a Devils defender gave the Blaze a 2 on 1 into the Devils zone and for the 2^nd time in the game it was Paquette who scored to put the Blaze up 2-1 with just over 10 minutes to play in the game.

But 2 minutes later Layne Ulmer broke into the Blaze zone and placed a perfect cross ice pass onto the stick of Patrick Asselin who redirected it in past Nastiuk to tie the game at 51:46. This game, just like the game the night before, looked destined for overtime, but at 53:24 Andrew Hotham took a pass from Joey Martin and fired it past Nastiuk to put the Devils in front for the first time all night.

The Hotham goal proved to be the game winner, as the Devils completed a two-game sweep of the Blaze on back to back nights to make it 11 league wins in a row.

Photo: Scott Wiggins