Ice Hockey: Capitals have plenty of reasons to derail Devils

Published on Wednesday 10 March 2010 08:45

DOUG CHRISTIANSEN is desperate to beat Cardiff Devils at Murrayfield tonight (8pm) and bring Edinburgh Capitals level with Sheffield Steelers in the race for fifth place in the Elite League.

And he is also determined to see Capitals smash the 50-point barrier for the first time in the Elite League, which would help towards another goal of ending the season in a franchise-high fifth position.

Capitals have three games in hand over Steelers, the reigning league champions and Christiansen said: "A win will put us level with Sheffield with two games in hand and, if somebody had told me that at the start of the season, I would have taken it."

Cardiff head to Edinburgh straight from last night's 5-4 Challenge Cup Final second-leg victory at Nottingham, although Panthers lifted the trophy 8-7 on aggregate.

Inspirational Owen Fussey is out for the Caps along with Great Britain defenceman Kyle Horne and Andrew Sharp is suspended after picking up 50 penalty minutes in Saturday's 3-1 home defeat by Belfast Giants.

Christiansen added: "It's a different game for them (Cardiff) away from home. It's a big sheet (of ice) against a little sheet in their building.

"We have to force them to skate with us and they have big bodies who clog the middle so we have to do our best to win the net front battles and to use our speed in counter attacking and to put them under pressure consistently."

The giant American playcaller doesn't, however, want to face another in-form goaltender like Belfast's Stephen Murphy. He said: "I thought Stephen and our netminder Cody Rudkowsky were the best players on the ice last weekend.

"People who like to watch good goaltending will have appreciated their work but we came out with two points from the two games thanks to Sunday's 4-3 win after Saturday's 3-1 defeat.

"That was an immense win and we beat arguably the best team in the Elite League. Belfast are battling for the title and we went with them every step of the way.

"We faced a lot of adversity at the weekend and to get two points was a massive result."

Christiansen believes the fight by Sharp with Belfast's Pat Bateman 28 seconds into the middle session of Saturday's clash sparked his team for the remainder of the weekend which concluded in Sunday's stunning result.

He said: "He's (Sharp) got the toughest job in sports but Bateman had, this season, fought Cody and bloodied him, sucker punched Kyle (Horne) and went after Simon Lambert.

"I thought Sharp did the right thing in challenging him but, unfortunately, we had that long penalty kill to survive.

"The success of that kill gave us momentum and gave us belief in one another and it gave us a positive attitude.

"Sunday's game never got into a rhythm because of the penalties but the game was settled by their best players against our best players."