Hull Stingrays are beaten by Cardiff once again

Kalmikov scored his ninth goal of the season in Cardiff

Hull Stingrays were beaten 4-1 in the Elite League by Cardiff after enduring a nightmare journey to South Wales on Wednesday night.

Konstantin Kalmikov gave Hull an early lead despite the 10-hour trip.

Coach Sylvain Cloutier told BBC Radio Humberside: "It has been a long day for us. At one stage we didn't even think the game would be on.

"Cardiff are a good team, we gave it our best shot against the hottest team in the Elite League right now."

The face-off was delayed by 45 minutes due to the late arrival of Stingrays.

The vistors were again without Lee Mitchell (knee) and Aivars Gaisins (work commitments) but took a fifth-minute lead with a short-handed marker from Ukrainian Kalmikov - his ninth goal of the season - just nine seconds into Trevor Read's hooking penalty.

Rays netminder Christian Boucher made numerous saves to keep them ahead at the end of the first period despite being outshot by their opponents 26-2.

But the home finally found a way past Boucher with two powerplay goals inside 89 seconds.

Devils player-coach Gerard Adams levelled before Jon Pelle - the league's leading point-scorer - put the hosts ahead, with Read and Ryan Lake serving interference and hooking penalties respectively.

The Welsh side extended their lead in the third period with a short-handed strike from Scott Matzka and two minutes later Pelle claimed his second with another powerplay effort to wrap up the scoring.

Cloutier, whose side were beaten 12-0 on their previous visit to Cardiff, said: "We knew they would come out hard but we weathered the storm.

"I thought the guys did a decent job. We responded to what happened here last time and we matched their intensity, it was a physical game. We had to kill a lot of penalties so we couldn't really get going."