Giants too hot for Storm

Photo: Mark Ferris

Belfast Giants started their weekend trip to the north of England in the best possible way, beating Manchester Storm 7-2 in Altrincham in front of an excellent crowd of 2,342.

Pierre-Olivier Morin's pass all the way across the slot found the on-rushing Jordan Kawaguchi for a one-time finish to put the Giants ahead with 11:40 played. That lead was doubled on another odd-man rush, but this time of Mark Cooper opted to shoot instead of pass to Kyle Osterberg, and beat Evan Weninger at 12:49. Storm hit back 13 seconds later thanks to neat passing from Tyler Hinam and Chase Harrison setting up Craig Martin for a high finish past Jackson Whistle.

Cooper's drop pass allowed new signing Karl Boudrais to score on his debut with a shot that beat Weninger through traffic 104 seconds into period two to put the Giants back to ahead. Storm hit back again, though, this time through Grant Hebert at 27:23 to keep it a one-goal game.

A five-minute spell before the end of the second ultimately won the Giants the game. Josh Roach put the visitors back two ahead at 30:14, followed by Gabe Bast beating Weninger low glove-side at 33:53. Elijiah Barriga put home a rebound off the back boards at 35:09 to give the Giants a 6-2 lead through 40 minutes.

Barriga scored again with 30 seconds remaining to round off the game, beating Alex Oldale who was given the final period in Storm’s net.