Home comforts should provide Hull with boost in time for Panthers' visit

Stingrays got their season underway a fortnight ago with a 3-3 Challenge Cup draw in front of a 1,000-plus crowd at Hull Arena against Cardiff Devils.

Last weekend saw them away in Scotland where they followed up a 6-2 defeat at newcomers Braehead Clan with a 4-3 comeback win at Edinburgh Capitals.

A shorter trip to South Yorkshire to take on Sheffield Steelers followed on Wednesday where they succumbed to a 6-3 Challenge Cup defeat, while today they head to Whitley Bay to take on Newcastle Vipers.

Tomorrow sees Hull return to East Yorkshire to welcome high-flying Nottingham Panthers (6pm) and player-coach Cloutier said it would make a nice change to be surrounded by home comforts.

"It seems like ages since we played at home and the boys are all excited about getting back in front of their own fans again," said Cloutier."We managed to get more than 1,000 people in for the Cardiff game and it was a great atmosphere. With it being Nottingham on Sunday we're expecting another big crowd.

"It does make a difference to you as a player when you can hear the fans cheering for you – it's certainly an advantage and we'll need it because it's always tough against Nottingham."

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Forward Andrew Coburn - who grabbed his second goal of the season against Steelers, said success against fellow 'bottom-half' teams like Newcastle were vital to Stingrays' play-off hopes.

"We want to be in the play-offs and I feel we have the team to do that" he said. "We need to take as many points as we can from the likes of Newcastle and then get any point we can off the so-called top four.

"If we do that we should be fine."

Stingrays will be without defenceman Craig Mitchell, who is out for another month with a broken arm, although they hope to have forward Ryan Lake back in their ranks after he missed out facing his former club Steelers due to work commitments.

Steelers welcome Braehead to Sheffield Arena tonight (7.30pm) for their only game of the weekend and will hope to close the gap on leaders Belfast Giants, who extended their advantage at the top to five points after defeating Dundee Stars 2-1, albeit on a penalty shoot-out.

Steelers forward Jason Hewitt said: "We've got to use home ice to our advantage and make it uncomfortable for them. We need to make up some ground on Belfast this weekend."

In the English Premier League, Sheffield Steeldogs will look to bounce back from two defeats last weekend when they welcome Peterborough Phantoms to Ice Sheffield (7.30pm). They travel to bottom club Telford Tigers tomorrow.

New defenceman Adam Radmall - who won the league title with Milton Keynes last season - will start tonight with coach Matt Darlow hoping the 26-year-old's Elite League experience will help his young side cut out the errors which led to defeats against Swindon and Bracknell last weekend.

"Swindon and Bracknell were examples of us making way too many unforced errors, turning the puck over at both blue lines time and again," said Darlow.

"This is a steep learning curve for a lot of guys so we need to build confidence again."