The Cardiff Devils are one win away from winning the IIHF Continental Cup on home ice after defeating Polish club GKS Katowice 6-3 before 2,874 fans at Vindico Arena in the Welsh capital.
After a scoreless opening period, Canadian Jean Dupuy opened the scoring for Katowice just 40 seconds into the second. But Cardiff responded with five goals in a 14:46 span to take over the game. Katowice outscored Cardiff 2-1 in the third period.
Zach O’Brien led Cardiff offensively with two goals and one assist, while Joey Martin, Josh MacDonald and Duke Reid had two points each. Bartosz Fraszko and Patryk Wroka each had three points for Katowice.
This year’s Continental Cup final round only has three teams this year, the other being the Bruleurs de Loups from Grenoble, France. The fourth team that qualified – Arlan Kokshetau from Kazakhstan – withdrew from the tournament, officially due to “a combination of travel and timing issues,” which reportedly meant the inability to secure visas for a large portion of the team in the available timeframe.
According to IIHF.com, the visa issues were not limited to the Kazakh team, as four Katowice players – Travis Verveda, Brandon Magee, Dante Salituro and Stephen Anderson – did not play in today’s game because they were unable to enter the UK, even though they are all Canadians, who can normally enter the country visa-free.
The final round continues on Saturday with Katowice taking on Grenoble, followed by Grenoble and Cardiff on Sunday. Katowice’s only chance of winning the Continental Cup is via a three-way tie, which depends on winning Saturday by as many goals as possible, followed by a narrow regulation win by Grenoble over Cardiff. The Devils, meanwhile, can secure the cup with a win of any kind of Sunday, and they might need even less, depending on what happens Saturday.
None of the three teams has ever won the Continental Cup before, but other clubs from all three countries have. Cardiff has finished third in each of the last two seasons while Katowice was also third in 2018-19.
The Continental Cup is a second-tier club competition in Europe, below the Champions Hockey League.