Cardiff Devils opened the 2026-27 season with a 3-1 victory over Guildford Flames within the Problem Cup at Vindico Area.
The Devils fell behind when Cole Sandford – who left Cardiff in the summertime – returned to attain inside three minutes towards his former membership.
Josh MacDonald tied the sport with a deflected shot halfway by means of the primary interval and the sport remained 1-1 going into the third.
Joey Martin grew to become solely the fifth participant in Elite League historical past to succeed in 700 factors with an help on Kohen Olischefski's go-ahead objective, and defenceman Nick Welsh sealed the win with slightly below two and a half minutes to play.
Devils netminder Ben Bowns was man of the match, saving 45 of 46 pictures.
"It wasn't simple, and I didn't count on it to be simple," stated Devils head coach Paul Thompson.
"I'm simply glad we bought the 2 factors."
Devils journey to Coventry on Sunday (17:30 BST) to face a Blaze aspect who misplaced their opening Group A sport 6-0 at Sheffield Steelers.
Previous to the sport the Devils celebrated final season's Play-Offs last conquer Steelers, with a banner elevating ceremony which Thompson felt impacted his aspect's begin.
"I believed it took us in all probability 10 minutes after the ceremony to get going," the pinnacle coach added.
"I believed we had been just a little bit flat to be trustworthy with you, and I've seen that occur so many instances.
"Then I believed we bought into the sport midway by means of the primary and I believed within the second interval it was all us and we did have some gilt-edged possibilities to try to take a lead however within the third interval it was contact and go."
