Giants hit back at Clan

Photo: William Cherry

Belfast Giants kept up their chase of Cardiff Devils at the top of the table with a three-goal home win over Glasgow Clan at a sold-out SSE Arena.

Lucas Brine was undoubtedly the star of the opening period, stopping 13 shots to keep the game scoreless as the Giants generated decent chances in front of him. The puck of the saves was a point-blank diving glove save to stop Kyle Osterberg after a deflection at the top of the crease, while Ciaran Long and Nick Prkusic also had a tussle in the first 20 minutes.

Having kept his team in the game in the first period, Brine couldn’t do much about the Giants running in four goals in the second. Just 39 seconds into the middle frame, a Jordan Kawaguchi drop pass set up Pierre-Olivier Morin in the slot for a nice wrist shot finish to open the scoring.

The Giants broke 2-on-1 just over four minutes later and had Bobo Carpenter feed Kawaguchi for their second of the night. JJ Piccinich finished on the powerplay at 26:43 to make it 3-0, while Ben Lake made it four with just over five minutes left in the period. An excellent double save from McCollum in the period kept the Clan without score.

Simon Despres had Clan back into things with just over 10 minutes to play in period three, but that was as close as the visitors came to any sort of a comeback, with Belfast taking the 4-1 win.