Devils Down Giants To Cut Lead At The Top
The Stena Line Belfast Giants fell to a 6-3 defeat against the Cardiff Devils on Saturday night. The Welsh side’s win sees the Giants lead at the top of the Elite League cut to one point.
After the Giants lead 2-1 following the opening 20 minutes, a dominant second period period from the Cardiff Devils saw them 5-2 up and they never looked back from there. The Giants were missing Darryl Lloyd & Chris Higgins through injury and competed well throughout the game, however they will be disappointed with their second period showing.
The game started at a frantic pace as the Devils side, with a sell out crowd behind them, tried to assert themselves on their home ice. After 4:54, Cardiff opened the scoring as Andrew Hotham fired the puck into the top shelf of the Giants net while on the powerplay with Kris Beech sitting out a slashing penalty.
The Giants also took advantage of their own powerplay opportunity in the first period as Mike Wilson found himself right in front of the net and slotted the puck past Ben Bowns in the Cardiff net at 15:26 after a nice pass from behind the net by James Desmarais.
Soon after, it was 2-1 as a nice breakout from the Giants saw Walser get the puck to Benedict who fed Radja who skated in on goal, picked his spot and gave the visitors the lead after 16:37.
The Cardiff Devils tied things up early in the second period as their top scorer Joey Martin pounced on a great opportunity at 22:23 after the Giants coughed up the puck right in front of their net. Less than four minuets later, Martin had his second of the night – scoring on the powerplay at 26:22 with two Giants in the penalty box.
At 29:50, the Devils made it 4-2 through Tomas Kurka’s sixth goal of the season and at 38:50 the hosts scored their fourth of the period to make it 5-2, again thanks to Kurka.
The Giants opened the scoring in the third period as Mike Radja, assisted by Benedict, got the visitors to within two goals at 43:51. However, the Devils restored their three goal lead and need the scoring in the game through a Joey Haddad powerplay goal at 52:07.
The Giants return to action on Sunday 15th November in a Challenge Cup clash against the Dundee Stars, face-off 5pm at The SSE Arena, Belfast.
Final Score:
Cardiff Devils 6-3 Stena Line Belfast Giants
Giants Man of the Match:
Mike Radja
Discover more from LoveBelfast
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Comments are closed.