Game Preview - Devils Vs Giants 24th

22nd Feb 2013 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Sunday night see’s the Belfast Giants return to the bay for the last time this season. The Giants currently in second place in the league are driving hard for the league win and will no doubt want to maintain their record against the Devils in preparation for next weekend’s double header against the Devils.  This will be the 6th meeting between the two teams this season with the margin currently at 4-1 to the Giants

We took a look at the Giants team earlier in the season which you can check out here  http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/news/giants-devils-game-preview/

The Giants have had a fairly busy time over the last week or so with a Double header against the Blaze last weekend a middle of the week trip to Scotland to take on the Stars and a game on Saturday against the Sheffield Steelers on Saturday.  

Looking at their last few games Staring with a loss to the Blaze last Friday where the  Giants got off to the fast start they wanted when Darryl Lloyd fired them ahead after only 79 seconds but that was the only time they were to see the puck beat Peter Hirsch in the visitors cage, despite firing a total of 16 shots on the Danish goaltender. Blaze were also creating opportunities and at 15.36 the game was level when Derek Campbell found the net for the visitors.

Period two again saw both teams have several near things but the second half of the period saw Blaze take control of the game with two goals, the first of which was scored by Brad Leeb at 30.31 and then at 37.59 Adam Henrich saw the visitors two clear on a delayed penalty.

When Leeb scored his second at 48.55 the game was effectively over and although Noah Clarke pulled one back for Giants at 52.20 the final say was to Blaze and to Henrich as he fired into the empty net at 58.19 to confirm the points were well and truly in the hands of Paul Thompson’s men.

The game did end with some frustrations boiling over with 7 seconds remaining and Robby Sandrock of Giants (5 plus game spearing) and Brad Leeb of Blaze (game) were in the showers earlier than the other players.

Belfast Giants 2 – 5  Coventry Blaze 
 
Saturday saw the Giants bounce back with the opening exchanges saw close things at both ends but at 7.36 it was Giants who shot ahead with a strike by Clarke.

Adam Henrich then levelled for Blaze at 15.07 on the powerplay before Matt Towe edged Giants ahead again at 18.20. Only 18 seconds later and it was 3-1 Giants as recent signing Chad Langlais found the net.  Before the period ended Adam Keefe of Giants and Benn Olson of Blaze dropped the gloves and were assessed fighting calls for their trouble.

The second period saw Blaze make a big effort to turn the game their way and in doing so they fired 19 shots on Garrett Zemlak in the Giants net. Unfortunately for the visitors only one of those nestled in the net, a goal by Dustin Cameron at 24.25, leaving the game nicely poised after forty minutes.

Early in the third period Keefe had his second fight, this time taking Mike Egener to the box with him but the penalty box doors were rarely closed after that as both sides engaged in a feisty period of play. Two Giants goals in 18 seconds effectively saw the game theirs with Gareth Roberts scoring his first of the season at 44.09 and Craig Peacock adding Giants fifth at 44.27.

A succession of infractions completely disrupted the flow of play after that but when late on the penalty count took its toll on the visitors the hosts took advantage with three powerplay goals inside the final three minutes. Olson had been ejected on a 5 plus game for slashing and during the time of that penalty Giants scored through Rycroft at 57.36, Clarke at 58.03 and Rycroft again at 59.26 to end the game on a high – not something that could be said of Blaze unfortunately.

Belfast Giants 8 – 2  Coventry Blaze

Speaking after this game Belfast coach Doug Christiansen had this to say -

“I did very little to be honest”
 
He did say more than that if I’m honest it was more like...

“I did very little to be honest, the players decided they wanted to play and that’s the reality of it. Sometimes as a team you get into the position where you need a spark and maybe that’s what Saturday’s game was. Every time this season this team has had their backs up against the wall they’ve responded. It’s not so much the response that I need to worry about, it’s the night before the response”
 
“For us as a team, if we want to achieve our goals we need to play like that every night and if we do that we’re a really good hockey club, we’re a title contender but if we play like we did on Friday night it could be a disappointing end.”

He added to this that overall he was not pleased with the weekend but he was pleased with Saturday's game.

"One of the things we tried to do tonight was be the initiator- be physical, go to the net, try to draw them into penalties"

“We gave some foolish penalties away in the second period and our penalty kill didn’t work as effectively as I would like it to.”

“I talked to the guys during the breaks and told them we either stay out of the box or kill the penalties — and we didn’t do either.”

Giants moved back up to second place in the league standings with a hard fought win against Stars in Tayside and are now only two points adrift of leaders Nottingham but with a game more played.
It’s a sixth league win on the bounce on the road for Giants but slumping Stars have now lost their last four – and at a critical time of the season for them!

Giants took the initiative early by killing off an opening minute penalty and then taking full advantage of their own first powerplay opportunity by going ahead at 3.04 with a strike by Kevin Saurette. Despite outshooting Stars 18 to 8 in that opening period that was to be the only counting shot.

Period two was goalless but again  Giants were having more of the play and this time fired 14 shots on Nic Riopel as against only 7 on Garrett Zemlak and it was into the third session before the hosts made a more even fight of proceedings.

However, there was just no way past Zemlak as he ended up  making 23 saves for his fourth shutout as a Giant, having only joined the team in January.

Of course with only a single in the game Giants were never secure but their nerves were ease by an insurance strike by Jeff Mason as the defencemen ended a 20 game scoring drought by firing in at 54.24 to ice both points the Giants

Dundee Stars 0 - 2 Belfast Giants

Looking at the scoring for the Giants the ones to watch are Noah Clarke on 51 points Colin Shields on 48 points ( with Belfast & Sheffield combined ) Daymen Rycroft on 44 points and Craig Peacock on 37 points against the Devils nets the ones to watch for the Giants are -  

Craig Peacock on 3 Goals

Daymen Rycroft on 4 Goals

Adam “Cardiff Fans are sheep shagging Mutants”  Keefe on 4 Goals 

In nets the Giants have the somewhat re-invigorated Garrett Zemlak who has seen his save percentage jump 4.3% since leaving the Clan and starting in nets for the Giants, Zemlak is running with a 92.6% save percentage and has already had 4 Shut outs in just ten games for the Giants.

The Devils have found the Giants a hard nut to crack so far this season with just the one win so far, looking at the scoring so far on the Giants nets with the player we still have fit the ones to watch against the Giants for us are - 

Jesse Gimblett on 3 goals

Josh Batch on 1 goal

Tyson Marsh on 1 goal

Mark Richardson on 1 goal

With this being the first game of three in a row against the Giants where 6 points are up for Grabs against a conference rival ( so  a 12 points swing really ) we can expect this to be a big game. We will be running the “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” Match Night Live service for this game, expect name calling and one eyed bias in epic proportions, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl if you'd like to help out by texting updates (we’d be happy to hear from you) or chip in with some comments on the night please contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com.