Giants take narrow lead into Coventry

Photo: William Cherry

Belfast Giants will take a one-goal aggregate lead to Coventry for the second leg of their Playoff series, having beaten the Blaze 2-1 in front of 7,411 fans at the SSE Arena.

A scoreless and tight opening period began this Quarter-Final series, Taran Kozun notably pulling off an excellent pad save to keep things all square.

The Giants went ahead just 19 seconds into period two with Greg Printz passing from below the goal line to Oliver Cooper to slot past Kozun and open the scoring. On a Cameron Pound Tripping minor, Mitch Cook reacted fastest to Jackson Whistle spilling a JD Dudek shot as Coventry tied the game at 24:58. The Giants survived another penalty kill before making use of a man-advantage of their own - Daniel Tedesco's throw on the net bounced off Ben Lake at the top of the crease to put the Giants back ahead with 31:28 played.

That was where the scoring stopped, with just one of the three periods on the night producing goals. The final period ended without penalties and 19 shots across both goalies.