Giants almost into Cup Semis with shutout win

Photo: William Cherry

Tom McCollum stopped 32 shots as Belfast Giants moved a step closer to booking their place in the Challenge Cup Semi-Finals with a shutout home win over Glasgow Clan in front of 6,795 fans on Wednesday night at the SSE Arena.

"I thought the whole team was great tonight. We did a great job putting a lot of pressure at their end," said McCollum after his shutout win. "Full credit to their goalie, he played very well and it was a very hard fought game both ways. Fortunately we were able to find a way to get the power play goal at the end of the second and really hold onto it the rest of the game."

There was little to report on in the first period. The Giants dominated the opening stages, however Lucas Brine in the Clan net kept them out after being forced into a number of saves in the opening 20 minutes.

Belfast began the next period on powerplay, however, it was the Clan who started the strongest in the second. Joe Hazeldine, and Darrien Kielb all forced saves from McCollum, as the Giants were put under early pressure. Neither side was able to create many chances until the Giants eventually took the lead at 39:40 with a goal powerplay through Pierre-Olivier Morin. The puck fell to Grant Mismash, who struck a shot that was well saved by Lucas Brine but he couldn't do anything to stop Morin from putting the Giants ahead to finally open the scoring.

Clan had three successive powerplays to level the game across the opening 12 minute sof the final period but could find a way past McCollum. Brine was pulled with 2:12 to play but the visitors' gamble didn't pay off - JJ Piccinich found the empty net at 58:44 to settle things. Morin added a further empty-netter with 60 seconds remaining as the Giants took a 3-0 victory.

McCollum held on to register his first EIHL shutout. "It's very nice, obviously you always enjoy it but I have to give a lot of credit to my teammates," he added. "They did a lot of hard work out there and helped me see pucks and clean up some rebounds and a lot of big blocked shots and some great plays from those guys."

The win puts the Giants one step closer to the Cup Semi-Finals. "It gives us a little space for our side of the Cup and still puts us within striking distance to try and get the top overall seed which we've been talking about since the start of the year" concluded McCollum.