Sheffield 4-2 Cardiff

Sheffield missing youngsters Steve Duncombe and Gavin Farrand. Cardiff missing Mike Ware.

Devils slumped to their sixth successive defeat, but looked anything but a disheartened side. In the end they didn't have quite enough to beat an in-form Sheffield side, who themselves hit a six game losing streak a few weeks ago. If Devils keep playing like this the wins will come. But tonight Kevin Bolibruck's first goal for Sheffield into the empty Cardiff net bagged the points for Sheffield.

3826 saw Dennis Maxwell finally finnd a way past Rob Dopson, 234 mins 17 seconds after Steve Carpenter's powerplay blast beat the Sheffield goalie 4 games ago. In between Dopson set a new club record - and almost certainly a new British record - for shutting out the opposition. And what a soft goal is was as Dopson allowed Maxwell's wrister to sneak through his glove after Maxwell intelligently pulled down a high clearance (17:18). Five minutes earlier a great short-handed passing move ended with Maxwell findinh Dopson's right shoulder when the Devil seemed certain to score.

Those chances aside Sheffield dominated the opening period, though their powerplay created few clear chances. Halfway through the first period Anderson's right wing shot trickled through McInerney but the Devils goalie recovered. Bobyck beat McInerney on the backhand skating left to right across the front of the goal.

McInereny stacked his pads at his right post to deny Ryan Lake early in the third. But Cardiff had slightly the better of the middle session and Matulik got away down the left only to find the goalie's pads. Burgoyne tested the goalie from the right then Sheffield's Anderson did the same at the other end, Shudra just clearing the bar with the rebound. Doug McEwen and Brent Bobyck tested the keepers whilst Steelers' Adams sat a cross-checking penalty. With a minute left in the second Devils' Burgoyne intercepted a clearance but Dopson held the shot under pressure.

Early in the final period Stone took a holding penalty and talked his way to an additional misconduct and at last the home side powerplay clicked. Shudra fired in from the right, the puck popped out from under McInereny and Anderson reacted first (41:59). Soon after there was a lengthy stoppage to replace a broken piece of plexi and Devils struggled to find their rhythm from the restart. Bobyck netted his second after Dutiaume and Bolibruk out-worked the Devils in their own end (55:37). But Irving's interference penalty gave Romaniuk the chance to shoot through Dopson's legs from close range (54:44) to keep the game evenly balanced. From then on it was all Devils and after calling a time-out with 86 seconds left they lifted McInerney for an extra skater. But Sheffield cleared their zone and Bolibruck was first in the race for the puck to clinch the win (58:43).