Devils: Hockey Smart

Gerad Adams believes that playing smart hockey was the key to the Boxing Day victory against the Coventry Blaze.

The sixth-placed Devils came through on Friday with a 3-1 victory to win their first league tie against the Blaze this season.

Despite missing three imports – Mike Prpich, Marc Fulton and Mike Hartwick – the Devils were able to beat the title contenders and, according to Adams, it was because they outsmarted the opposition.

“I think we’ve been playing smarter hockey,” Adams said in an interview with skysports.com.

"By the end of the game the other teams have been more tired than we are. And a lot of that is down to the high-energy, impact players on our team like Neil Francis and Ben Davies.”

It was Cardiff’s first victory against a top-four side since October 19 and the Devils now have combined record of two wins and 13 losses against the big four.

“I’m extremely happy with the way the guys played,” Adams added.

“The performances have been good from our side lately and we got a result against one of the top teams in the league. I thought we deserved the victory and we outplayed them in a lot of the different aspects of the game.”