Belfast Giants head coach Adam Keefe admitted his side didn’t do the “little things” which resulted in them falling to a disappointing defeat at the Sheffield Steelers.
Despite leading by a pair after Elijiah Barriga’s early double, the Giants had no answer to the Steelers response, conceding five without reply to fall to 5-3-1 on the 2024/25 season and already nine points behind the Cardiff Devils in the Elite League standings, albeit having played three games less.
Netminder Tom McCollum had a rough outing, making just 13 saves as Patrick Watling’s double, along with further goals from Sacha Guimond, Veeti Vainio and Robert Dowd, led the defending Grand Slam champions to the two points at the Utilita Arena.
“I thought we played okay. Certainly not well enough to win. I thought Sheffield was the better team tonight, I thought they won the majority of the 50/50 battles, specifically in their end. Any time we got a puck deep, we were losing all those battles,” sighed Keefe.
“After the second goal, it didn’t look like we were going to get a third one, and that’s tough to take. Defensively, we were alright. I didn’t think it was a 5-2 hockey game, but it didn’t look like we were going to get the third, it didn’t look like we had a real push-back.
“Sheffield was doing the little things like winning puck battles behind their net to make sure we were one and done, and that’s the way it goes. We didn’t do enough to have a real push-back, and that’s disappointing.”
The Giants were in dreamland when Barriga fired them ahead off J.J. Piccinich’s stretch pass just 85 seconds in, and then they took advantage when Kevin Tansey was ejected for boarding Ciaran Long and Barriga doubled both his and the team’s tally on the major powerplay.
But that was as good as it got for the Giants, and instead, Watling made it a one-goal game at the first intermission when his shot squeezed under the glove of McCollum, and the comeback was complete when Guimond tied it on the powerplay and Watling fired his second in the second period.
Despite coming out in the third period with more energy, the Giants never seriously threatened Sheffield netminder Matt Greenfield – 33 saves – again, and instead, Vainio and Dowd both fired home in the final 10 minutes to put some distance between the two sides.