Giants extend lead at top in shootout

Photo: William Cherry

Belfast Giants extended their lead at the top of the Elite League table to five points with a shootout win over Coventry Blaze. The visitors were deserving of their point and moved to within four of the top four.

"I thought it was a pretty good team effort tonight. They're a hard-working team, came really hard, made it a really good game, and we were lucky to get the two points tonight," said Jackson Whistle, who stopped all four Blaze attempts in the shootout. "The first period was a little wild actually to be honest. It was all over the place. Both teams had a lot of powerplays early on so it was a bit of a weird start to the game but I think we were alright and we knew if we kept going then we could start to break them down."

The first period was full of penalties and powerplays as seven different players took a seat in the box in the opening 10 minutes. The Giants threatened the most out of the two teams, but neither were able to capitalise on powerplay. Belfast came closest to the opener as JJ Piccinich and Bobo Carpenter both struck the pipes, while Pierre-Olivier Morin would have gone through 1-on-0 on Mat Robson but dropped his stick on the way through.

The second period began the same as the first, with a penalty. This time, Coventry were able to take advantage - Chase Gresock received the puck and tried to pick out a teammate. However, the puck deflected off the stick of Morin and past Jackson Whistle to give the Blaze the lead at 21:27.

It was no surprise that when the Giants equalised, it also came on powerplay. A nice move was finished off by Scott Conway, who fired past Mat Robson from the far post to get the Giants level at 24:39.

The hosts were able to get ahead through a great goal from Grant Mismash. He carried the puck into the left circle and fired into the top corner to put the Giants a goal up at 28:11.

Coventry levelled early on the powerplay in perio three to have the gam tied again - Terrance Amorosa with the goal at 44:49 bringing the score back to 2-2.

As the Blaze soaked up a lot of Giants pressure in period three, they broke and David Clements had an excellent chance to win the game late on. But shot straight at Whistle from close range. At the other end, Piccinich had Robson beat but could work the puck over the line from a tight angle and saw it trickle past the post.

With the scores level at 60 minutes, both teams took a point and the game headed to overtime.

Whistle made a big save towards the end of overtime, and was then the Giants' hero in the shootout as he shut the door on all four Coventry shots. JJ Piccinich and Grant Mishmash scored at the other end to give the Giants the extra point.

"It's nice to win," concluded Whistle. "Obviously we would've loved to get it done in regulation so we don't have to worry about overtime and the shootout, but it's nice to get the two points and it's a big extra point moving forward."