Five unanswered goals from the Sheffield Steelers saw the Belfast Giants slip to the defeat on Sunday afternoon at the Utilita Arena.
Besides Elijiah Barriga, who gave the Giants a two-goal lead inside the opening nine minutes to take his weekend tally to four, the Giants couldn’t answer the problem that is Matt Greenfield and were kept off the scoreboard for the remaining 51 minutes as the netminder turned away 33 of the 35 shots he saw.
And instead the home side would roar back as two goals from Patrick Watling led the way, the Steelers taking the lead just before the second intermission and closing it out through Veeti Vainio and Robert Dowd in the third.
It was a rough outing for netminder Tom McCollum, who made just 13 saves in the defeat, while the Giants will be a tad disappointed they didn’t capitalise more on an early major powerplay to Kevin Tansey for boarding on Ciaran Long.
The season still has a significant way to run, of course, but at 5-3-1 for the campaign the Giants are already starting to feel a tad cut adrift, three points behind the Steelers having played a game more and seven back of leaders the Cardiff Devils with three games to make up.
Given how the rest of the game went, the Giants’ start was as good as it could get and it came just 85 seconds in as Barriga gave them the lead, finding the top corner off J.J. Piccinich’s long stretch pass from inside his own zone, and he would repeat the feat at 8:38 to double the lead as he picked the exact same spot from the left face-off dot.
The latter came on the major powerplay as Tansey was ejected for boarding Long, which would also take the forward out of the game through injury, and the Giants might look back on that powerplay and rue not taking further advantage, Piccinich hitting the bar the closest they game to extending.
Instead, Watling got the Steelers off the mark with a goal that McCollum will want back, a wrister from the top of the left circle seemingly an easy one for him to deal with but instead sneaking off the underside of his glove and nestling in the bottom corner at 16:26.
That gave Sheffield life going into the second period and they took full advantage. McCollum made amends with a brilliant glove save to deny Mikko Juusola a goal of the week contender as he went coast to coast, but there was nothing he could do to deny Sacha Guimond tying the game at 32:03.
The defenceman was able to laser a shot through traffic from the blue-line on a Gabe Bast holding penalty and then Watling would put the home side ahead with what proved to be the game-winning goal at 38:28, Mark Simpson’s pass from circle to circle enabling the winger to snap in his second.
Try as they might, however, the Giants couldn’t ride the momentum of killing off a too many men call over the second intermission to tie it early in the third and if anyone was going to score then it would be the Steelers as Mitchell Balmas’ redirect rebounded off the bar before Vainio and Dowd settled it.
The former, on his Steelers debut, ripped it into the back of the net from the blue-line at 50:53 to open up some daylight between the sides before Dowd rounded off the scoring at 56:06 when he fired into the top corner from the left circle to pile more misery on Adam Keefe’s men.