Visit of Steelers offers Stingrays chance to establish consistency

The last three weeks have seen the Stingrays at their best and, in the case of a 12-0 televised defeat at Cardiff Devils, their worst.

Throw in a 7-0 defeat while visiting Sheffield Steelers just over two weeks ago and a terrible 9-4 defeat at bottom club Dundee Stars and you would be forgiven for thinking that the Stingrays are a team in crisis.

But, four days after failing to turn up in South Yorkshire, Cloutier's team produced a stunning 3-2 overtime win over current Elite League leaders Belfast Giants.

And the nightmare of Cardiff last Friday was partly forgotten two days later when they held Nottingham Panthers to a 1-1 draw on home ice in the Challenge Cup, a competition Hull had already been eliminated from.

A 5-1 win over 2009-10 regular season champions Coventry Blaze, coming just a week after the defeat at Dundee, only further highlights the inconsistency of Cloutier's team, who face Steelers at Hull Arena tomorrow (7pm).

"It was definitely important to take something from the Nottingham game after what happened in Cardiff," said Cloutier.

"But we can't keep doing that every weekend. While it's good that we can bounce back from heavy defeats like those we shouldn't put ourselves in that position in the first place."

Prior to the seven-goal defeat to the Steelers at Ice Sheffield, Stingrays had twice pushed Ben Simon's team close in the Challenge Cup before losing out 6-3 each time.

"We've shown in the two cup games that we can live with them – but not for the whole 60 minutes," added Cloutier. "We've got a good group of guys in that locker room but we need to show that what happened in Sheffield last month was just a fluke."