Stingrays look to complete the set

In the five league meetings so far this season, Hull have drawn a blank against Gerad Adams’s side, scoring only five goals while conceding 23, more than half of which came in November’s infamous 12-0 thrashing in front of the live TV cameras in Cardiff Bay.

With four games remaining, the Devils arrive at Hull Arena two points behind league leaders Sheffield Steelers with a game in hand as the regular season title race prepares to go into the final weekend in a three-horse race that also includes the Belfast Giants.

Player-coach Sylvain Cloutier - who earlier this week agreed to return to Hull Arena for a third season - was dismayed with his team’s performance in Wednesday night’s 7-2 home defeat to the Coventry Blaze and is looking for his players to respond by finding a way to finally beat the only team they have failed to get the better of this season.

“If we play like we did on Wednesday there’s no way we’ll beat Cardiff,” said Cloutier.

“There’s no doubt they’ve had our number this season, for whatever reason, but it would be good for us to steal two points off them.

“They are a good hockey team, but we just want to show that we can compete with them for the full 60 minutes. If we do that, we stand a good chance of winning.”

An unexpected win for Hull would hand a huge boost to the Steelers, who take part in a largely meaningless Twenty20 tournament in Nottingham on Saturday before travelling to second-bottom Newcastle Vipers on Sunday.

Player-coach Ben Simon - whose team finish off their regular season with a double header against the Braehead Clan next weekend - is determined to avoid any further slip-ups of the kind that saw them suffer a three-game losing streak before edging out Belfast in a seven-goal thriller at Ice Sheffield on Wednesday night.

While the Steelers have romped to five wins against the troubled Vipers - scoring 25 goals while conceding none in the three home encounters - overcoming Danny Stewart’s team has proved more difficult in the North East.

The Vipers are likely to have seen their faint play-off hopes ended on Saturday night as they face a tough trip to Belfast while eighth-place rivals Dundee Stars should have little trouble seeing off rock-bottom Edinburgh Capitals.

“To be in the position we are with three games left - if that had been offered to us at the start of the season, we would have taken it in a heartbeat,” said Simon.

“Whenever you are playing a desperate team, or a team who have nothing to play for, they can run and gun and take chances all night long so we have to be mindful of that on Sunday.

“It’s a dark, old building and the ice surface is smaller. So we have to adapt our game and be careful - we know it’s difficult to play Newcastle there.”