Devils seek home lift-off for Elite League title bid

Cardiff Devils begin their 54-match regular-season campaign this weekend, hoping home comforts can give them a head start in their bid for the Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) title.

The Welsh club have already played six games in the Challenge Cup - winning a trio of matches in their own Vindico Arena, but losing all three road trips.

Starting with the visit of Manchester Storm on Saturday, 3 October (19:00 BST), and Glasgow Clan the following day, Cardiff's first four EIHL games are all on home ice, where they also enjoyed a 100% record in pre-season.

"We've won eight straight home games since we started," pointed out head coach Paul Thompson.

"The league is the big thing over here [in the UK]. It's the start of a 54-game play-off and we've got to utilise the home games that we've got coming up."

Thompson is mindful, however, they will have to carry those impressive performances into trips away from south Wales.

"Our away form hasn't been at the level it has been at home, and we have to replicate that if we're going to go on and win some trophies this year," he added.

The Devils currently sit second in Challenge Cup Group A, but with other teams having games in hand, Thompson's side may need to win their remaining four games to ensure automatic qualification for the semi-finals.

"If you look at the whole league, winning on the road is getting tougher because of the level of the teams," said the former Sheffield Steelers, Coventry Blaze and Great Britain coach.

"This isn't the Elite League of 10 years ago. There are no easy games."

Last weekend's 3-1 defeat at Sheffield was a tight encounter, with the Steelers only getting their third goal in the final minute after the Devils pulled netminder Ben Bowns.

"I thought we played a really good game on Sunday in Sheffield," added Thompson.

"The big one was at Coventry when [after leading] we just let them off the hook and we didn't go for the jugular when we should have, and we were a disaster in Guildford, all of us."

The 5-1 defeat away at Guildford Flames, described by Thompson as abysmal, prompted him to bring the squad in on their day off. It had echoes of last season when he did the same following a home defeat to Nottingham Panthers.

"In any normal job if you had a bad day in the office on Friday and your boss called you in on the Saturday, you'd tell them where to go. But we didn't deserve the day off, none of us.

"It'll happen every single time we turn up and put that kind of effort in. We all knew we'd let ourselves down, our club down, our fans down.

"I like what we have, we need more consistency on the road, but we'll get there," he insisted.

The start of the 2026-27 season has also been hit by three players sustaining long term injuries.

Already waiting for defenceman Tyson Helgesen to return from undergoing surgery in April, Devils' forward Sam Duggan sustained a knee injury in a pre-season game which is expected to keep him out until November.

Another forward, Kristoff Kontos, is out with a lower body injury sustained two weeks ago, and the latest blow came when Evan Mosey injured his knee in a collision with a Nottingham Panthers player.

The 37-year-old former Great Britain international - who has a particular value to the roster with his ability to play in both attack or defence - will be out until Christmas, and his lengthy absence has prompted the club to bring in Swedish defenceman Jonas Emmerdahl.

At 6ft 4in (1.95m), the 34-year-old looks to be a shrewd signing.

As well as nine seasons in Sweden's second tier, Emmerdahl is a former captain at Fife Flyers.

"It's key when you take somebody at such short notice that they know the league," explained Thompson.

"His Swedish agent had been contacting our assistant coach Niklas [Hovivuori] over the summer asking if we were interested and we always quite liked him, but we had that type of player already signed up. So, we contacted the agent and within 24 hours it was done.

"He's happy to be here, he's happy to be on a team that is going to be challenging, and we will be. And we're happy to have him here.

"It made it very hard last weekend that some of the defencemen were playing 55-56 minutes over the two games. It's really hard to get them to play their game and what they add to us when they're clocking up that many minutes."

Emmerdahl will be thrown in immediately against Manchester and Glasgow this Saturday and Sunday, before Dundee Stars and reigning league champions Belfast Giants visit a week later.

"The next two weekends are big for us and we have to dig in deep," said Thompson.

"A lot of players are going to have to play a lot more minutes than maybe they would have because of the numbers we have out right now.

"But that's hockey. That's the way it is."