Double delight for Giants over Panthers

Photo: William Cherry

Belfast Giants completed a weekend double over Nottingham Panthers with a 4-2 win on Saturday night in front of over 7,000 fans at the SSE Arena.

Having only combined for three goals in 60 minutes on Friday night, the Giants and Panthers ran up the same total in the opening 20 minutes in part two of their double-header.

3:50 was on the clock when nice passing from the Giants on the powerplay saw Ben Lake shoot and Greg Printz put in the rebound from the top of the crease to open the scoring for the home side. The Giants' powerplay struck again, this time just after the Panthers had returned to four skaters, with Printz feeding Bobby MacIntyre on the far side of the zone to double the lead. Nottingham stayed in the game through a nice Hugo Roy finish off a Carl Neill feed for a powerplay goal with three minutes left in the first period.

The crucial next goal came just short of 15 minutes into the second. Ara Nazarian and Ben Lake combined for a 2-on-1 play with the former finishing it off to extend the Giants' lead out to 3-1.

Otto Nieminen brought the Panthers back to within one, again, 3:26 into the final period as they refused to back down. The goal that settled things came with 10:40 left to play off the stick of Oliver Cooper. He picked the puck up on his own blue line, skated into the Panthers' zone, cut in from the wing and beat Rok Stojanovič for an excellent goal to give Belfast a 4-2 lead. This time, the two-goal lead held and the Giants moved into the second place in the standings.