The top three in the Elite League all recorded victories on Saturday night with leaders Belfast 3-0 winners at the Fife Flyers.
Leaders all win in Elite League on Saturday night
The top three in the Elite League all recorded victories on Saturday night with leaders Belfast 3-0 winners at the Fife Flyers.
Second-placed
Nottingham Panthers were also convincing victors as they comfortably beat the visiting
Coventry Blaze 6-1.
The Panthers took the lead after just 77 seconds when Jordan Fox hit the net before Guillaume Lepine and the Blaze's Bryan Jurynec renewed their rivalry with their third fight of the season just moments later.
Neil Francis and David Clarke scored on the powerplay and Matt Myers added another before James Griffin finally got the Blaze on the scoreboard with three minutes left.
David Beauregard scored 57 seconds later to seal a fine win for Nottingham and a miserable Saturday evening for the Blaze.
Steelers keep pace
Third-placed
Sheffield Steelers, who games in hand on the leaders, kept in touch with a 4-2 win at
Edinburgh Capitals.
There was an all-Scottish clash in the Elite League and it was the
Braehead Clan won their battle north of the border as they defeat the
Dundee Stars 5-4.
A five-goal burst in the second period gave
Cardiff Devils an entertaining 8-5 victory over
Hull Stingrays in a goal fest.
Ben Davies scored the only goal of the first period before the game exploded into life in the second, with Cardiff netting two early on through Kenton Smith and Scott Matzka.
The assault continued as the Devils struck another two goals inside a minute with short-handed strikes from Stuart MacRae and Scott Dobben making if 5-0 to the Welsh side.
Onslaught
Hull managed to clear their heads and they got on the board when Jereme Tendler hit his 30th goal of the season, but Cardiff hit right back with Chris Frank adding a sixth in the dying seconds of the period.
The Stingrays replaced beleaguered netminder Christian Boucher with Andy Brummitt at the start of the third period, and they grabbed another goal back when Tendler netted again inside the first minute to make it 6-2.
Any hope of a comeback was rubbed out though with another two-goal blast from Cardiff sealing the points as Jeff Pierce and player-coach Gerad Adams made it 8-2.
Dominic Osman did give the Stingrays some respectability as he scored a late hat-trick to make if a final score of 8-5 as Hull won the final period 4-2.
"Guys have to learn they cannot just switch it on when they want - they must play for 60 minutes," said Hull player-coach Sylvain Cloutier. "We played a decent first period, a terrible second and did well in the last 10 minutes - but it is not good enough."
