Devils Put Out Guildford Flames

Published on: 21 Sep, 2025
Updated on: 23 Sep, 2025

Alert defence proved not to be enough for the Flames in Cardiff. James Assinder

In Cup action, Flames scored an early goal, but that proved to be the highlight in their away match with the Cardiff Devils who replied with seven goals unanswered to deliver a one sided win over Spectrum’s men.

Less than three minutes into the opening frame, Flames took a lead through Charlie Curti, but replies from Nolan Yaremko at 14:41 and Cole Sanford on the powerplay at 18:35 sent the hosts to break with the edge.

The visitors couldn’t convert a powerplay that began the second period before Ben Davies extended the margin to a pair at 27:00. Just as the Devils closed out another successful kill, Josh MacDonald widened the gap at 32:49 and the Welsh side started the third enjoying a three-goal cushion.

They didn’t waste any time adding to that when Brandon Estes scored 27 seconds after re-start. Yaremko’s second on a 47th minute powerplay made it a 6-1 game and Kristoff Kontos in the 50th minute bagged the seventh to complete the evening.

Justin Fazio made 27 saves on 34 shots while Ben Bowns conceded a single against 31 shots.

“We had a good start but that can’t be the highlight of your team’s night,” said Paul Dixon. “Cardiff kicked it up a gear after the first 10 minutes or so, and did a great job to smother us to obviously be full value for their win.”

“At some important points, they made stuff happen. They made use of a powerplay to get in front and they not only killed penalties well, but were able to score right as a penalty expired to basically put the game away at the exact time we really needed one ourselves.”

“Not hard to work out that we have to be better on Saturday against Coventry and we expect we will be.”