Welsh seals Devils' overtime Cup win against Blaze

Nick Welsh sealed an overtime win for Cardiff Devils after they fought back from 4-2 down against Coventry Blaze to boost their hopes of making the Challenge Cup semi-finals.

Brandon Estes opened the scoring for the hosts but goals from William Boysen and Ryan Richardson put the visitors ahead at the first interval, with Marko Csollak making it 3-1 early in the second.

Devils' Jimmy Oligny and Coventry's Griffin Ness traded goals before Ryan Barrow and Joey Martin found the net to tie the game at 4-4 all heading into a goalless third period.

Welsh then secured the points to keep Cardiff third in Group A.

"It's all about the win," said Devils head coach Paul Thompson.

"In the first period, to say we were poor was probably being nice about it.

"We just weren't doing what we normally do, and systematically we were just all over the place."

The experienced Devils coach saw similarities in the game to the previous Sunday's 5-2 win over Belfast Giants, which maintained his side's 100% start in the Elite League.

"Pretty much like last week, from the 10-minute mark of the second period we started to come and instead of taking our frustration on the officials, which I think was warranted at times... we can't let that get into our heads, and we all did for a period," added Thompson.

"To come out in the third period and take it to overtime and get the win, it's do or die now in this group so it's all about getting the points."

The top two sides in Group A automatically qualify for the semi-final, with the third-placed team facing an elimination game against the runners-up in the smaller group B.

Nottingham Panthers lead the way with 11 points from eight of 10 games, followed by Sheffield Steelers second on 10 points from seven matches.

Cardiff have eight points, while Guildford Flames and Manchester Storm both have seven - all three having played seven games. Coventry have five points from six matches.

The Devils host Sheffield and visit Nottingham next week in the competition, before completing the group stages at Storm on Sunday, 1 November.

Thompson's side travel to Dundee Stars on Sunday, 18 October for their first away Elite League game of the season (17:00 BST).