Stingrays’ depth crucial for long road ahead

Cloutier’s team finished their pre-season preparations on Wednesday night when a comfortable 9-2 victory at Hull Arena gave them a 14-7 aggregate win in the Bradfield Brewery Cup against the Sheffield Steeldogs.

Missing for that game were recently-signed defenceman Kyle Mariani – signed as a replacement for the injured Chad Huttel – and forward Carl Lauzon, who replaced summer signing Sean Muncy. Both will miss Saturday’s opener at defending champions Nottingham Panthers as well as the first home game of the season the following night against Gardiner Conference rivals Braehead Clan.

“Obviously there are things we still need to work on and we are still a couple of guys short for the weekend,” said player-coach Cloutier.

“I have been pleased with the way we have shown character to come from behind in a couple of the pre-season games, it’s been good for our confidence – but it’s all about being ready for Nottingham on Saturday.”

After Cloutier asked his players to vote on the issue, defenceman Matt Suderman has been chosen as the Stingrays’ captain for the new campaign, with forward Jason Silverthorn and defenceman Jeff Smith picked as assistants.

Against the Steeldogs, new arrival Guillaume Doucet continued his encouraging pre-season form when he posted registered four goals - taking his tally to nine in four games.

Bobby Chamberlain (delayed penalty goal) put Stingrays ahead after just 107 seconds on a delayed penalty goal before Andrew Hirst levelled against his former club at 2.42. Quickfire strikes from Chamberlain (11.56) and Matty Davies (12.27) and a short-handed marker from Doucet (14.33) made it 4-1 before Lubomir Korhon pulled a goal back with one second of the first period remaining.

Two Doucet powerplay goals (31.10 and 34.15) extended Stingrays’ lead and, after late efforts from Sam Towner at 56.29 and Jereme Tendler 48 seconds later, he grabbed his fourth with 91 seconds left.

Owner Bobby McEwan said the decision to bring in added depth to the Stingrays roster had already begun to show its advantages.

“We are really happy with the way pre-season has gone, we are scoring goals and the guys are in a confident mood,” said McEwan.

“We have relied a lot on Jereme Tendler in the past few years but we are hoping Guillaume Doucet can ease some of that burden and he has made a good start for us and we hope that continues.

“It was good to see our young Brits chipping in with points and that is what we will need from them this season. We now have the depth which hurt us last season when our top guys were on the powerplay and then killing penalties. It makes a massive difference.”