Giants stand tall over Steelers

Time once more for our match report, this time it's Saturday night's trip to Belfast Giants.

Steelers arrived in the Northern Irish capital with a clean bill of health. That meant that both defenceman Zack Fitzgerald and power forward Matt Marquardt were available for selection again after their respective spells on the sidelines. Both players iced which meant a decision had to be made in the ranks whom would be the spare import. Centre Brady Ramsay was the one who was sacrificed, this meant a reshuffle in the bottom two lines. Belfast were at full strength, and coach Adam Keefe chose to start Jackson Whistle in between the pipes with the veteran Stephen Murphy being his back up.

The game couldn't have started so well or so bad depending which team you were supporting. An opening goal came with just 32 seconds on the clock played, Dustin Johner the man lighting the lamp. The Giants doubled their lead at 8:22, three seconds after Steelers had successfully killed a Mark Matheson tripping minor. Scorer this time was veteran offensive defenceman Cole Jarrett. And it got worse for the Steelers 52 seconds later when Sylvestre netted the Giants third of the night, prompting head coach Paul Thompson to call a time out.

Needing a goal to give themselves hope, Steelers managed to do that at 10:56. The irrepressible Levi Nelson scoring his first league goal of the season, with helpers from Matheson and Andreas Valdix. After that it became a goaltending contest with both netminders playing well for their team as well as bit physical too. Giants were comfortably out-shooting the Steelers, the only time they didn't was in the third period and even then that was only 11-10 in favour of Thompson's men. Both teams had a bad night on special teams too, failing to net on each of their four powerplay opportunities. So Steelers fall their regulation loss of the season and now move to 2-1-1 in regular season games, Giants go to 2-0-1 in their respective tally.

The two teams clash again today, Sunday, this time in the House Of Steel and we will see who will come out on top then. 

Time for the statistics:

Goals: Giants 3 Steelers 1 

Steelers Scoring: Nelson 1+0, Valdix 0+1, Matheson 0+1.

Giants Scoring: Connolly 0+2, Johner 1+0, Jarrett 1+0, Sylvestre 1+0, Goulakos 0+1, Vandermeer 0+1, Ferland 0+1.

Shots On Goal: Giants 47, Steelers 30

Powerplay: Giants 0 from 4 (0% conversion), Steelers 0 from 4 (0% conversion)

Penalty Minutes called: Giants 10, Steelers 20

Steelers Goaltender Stats: Mustukovs 44 Saves (111), GAA: 3.10 (2.61), Save Percentage 93.60% (91.70%)

Man of the Match: Matt Marquardt (Steelers), Matt Towe (Belfast)

Now for some of your thoughts:

Richard Wilcock: "Thommo's summed it up. We were poor, we need to play in first ten minutes like we do in the last ten."

Jonathan Cater: "Belfast deserved it. Thought some strange calls but didn't impact the result. Changing the lines messed up the flow of our players."

Sarah Stephenson: "First ten minutes killed it for us again! But we didn't just get into the game and didn't look interested, different team to Tuesday."

Bryan Ibbotson: "Horrendous first 10 minutes cost us that game. Did improve slightly as the game went on but would say our worst performance of the season so far."

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