Giants fight back from two down, win in shootout

Photo: Flyers Images

Belfast Giant continued their unbeaten start to the season but were made to work hard for it, coming from two down to finally beat Fife Flyers on penalty shots. The hosts were certainly worth of their point, but perhaps should have got more more.

In an exciting opening period, neither side found a way through but goalies Shane Owen and Tyler Beskorowany were showing the kind of form that dictated this would be a low-scoring game. 

Teemu Pulkkinen gave the Flyers the lead at 23:32 while Kohei Sato sat an Interference penalty, cutting inside and beating Beskorowany high glove side.

Sato was responsible for losing the puck in his own zone to Max Humitz in period three, which allowed the Flyers' forward to find Lucas Chiodo in the slot and fire past Beskorowany for a 2-0 Flyers lead.

Colin Shirley had an excellent chance to put the game to bed on an odd-man rush, but missed the target and the Giants survived to fight on. On the very next play, Ben Lake finally beat Shane Owen to get the visitors on the boards, just seconds after they could have found themselves three behind, with 12:07 to play. Max Humitz had an excellent chance to put the Flyers back two ahead but opted to pass instead of shoot, and with the play back in the Flyers zone he was called for shooting the puck out of bounds. The Giants made the extra man count with a Mark Cooper shot that was fired into Owen's net to tie things up at 56:10.

There was no winner in regulation, and so the game was decided in overtime with both teams taking a point. The Giants had the better looks, but with 33 seconds to play the Flyers thought they'd won it - the puck stuck somewhere under Tyler Beskorowany, the question was if it was over the line or not. The officials consulted the video review and washed out the goal, and with no scoring in the remaining time the game went to penalty shots. Mark Cooper was the only scorers in five rounds to get the Giants the bonus point.