The Solent Devils failed to settle in the penalty ridden
stop-start match and seemed unable to settle in their only match of the
weekend. They still however outshot their hosts 63-46 but came up against an
in-form netminder, only managing to beat him once. The Devils spent virtually
the whole of the second period on the powerplay, but simply couldn’t seem to
get their powerplay units working on the night, even conceding a short-handed
goal.
The match started at a fast pace, with both teams having
opportunities in the first few minutes. But the tone of the match was set in
the first minute as the referee called his first of twenty four separate
penalties in what wasn’t really a physical match. Ralfs Circemis came close
whilst the Devils were short-handed, but his shot was tipped away by the London
netminder. Chances came at both ends, with the Raiders looking to shoot from
both long and short-range. Another good chance came for the Devils on the seven
minute mark, as the team were yet again short-handed when defenceman Chris Beal
broke free but was again denied by the Raiders netminder. The only goal of the
period was scored by London, in the 14th minute whilst on the powerpay. In the
final seconds Alex Cole’s blue line shot beat the netminder, but agonisingly
just clipped the post and went wide.
A very scrappy second period saw the Devils have a number of
5 on 3 opportunities, and despite outshooting their visitors 27-13 were to lose
the period 0-2. Frustratingly the first of these was conceded whilst the Devils
were on the powerplay, as they were unable to respond to a London breakaway.
Andre Magee, Drew Campbell and Alex Murray all came close but the luck seemed
to be the Raiders this evening. Man of the Match Ben Lock had a shot from the
blue line, but this went just wide in the closing minutes of the period.
Starting the final period 0-3 down the home team upped the
pace, and yet again came close with powerplay opportunities in the opening
minutes. Mitch Murray finally broke the Raiders’ shut-out in the 46th minute as
he sneaked the puck in at the near post,
as Jamie Fitzpatrick was pressurising in front of netminder. Drew Campbell almost pulled another back
straight from the restart, but the puck went just wide. Continued pressure from
Devils saw George Norcliffe get a breakaway, but he was denied yet again by the
Raiders netminder. With just over 90 seconds remaining the Devils pulled their
netminder in favour of an additional forward, but this risky strategy didn’t
pay off as Raiders scored an empty net goal from their own end.
Solent Devils will look to regroup this week, and will be
aiming to record their first win of the season next weekend as they visit
Streatham on Saturday and welcome Bracknell on Sunday (7pm face-off).
