That’s five wins in a row for the Belfast Giants, and shutting out defending Grand Slam champions the Sheffield Steelers in dominant fashion is their biggest of the lot – although head coach Adam Keefe claims he saw this kind of run coming.
While netminder Tom McCollum was as solid as expected in making 36 saves for his fourth shut-out of the 2024/25 season, in reality he didn’t actually have to produce much by way of quality saves because the defensive performance in front of him was so good.
And that allowed a fifth goal in nine games from Bobo Carpenter to seal the win just 10:50 into the game, with Scott Conway’s powerplay goal with just 12.1 seconds remaining capping off a dominant first period in which the Giants out-shot their rivals 21-5 before Jordan Kawaguchi’s 11th goal of the campaign sealed it 5:17 into the third period.
Keefe’s side look like they’re firing on all cylinders having banged in 16 goals in their previous three games while conceding just two, and the head coach admits he was waiting for this kind of run to happen based on the stats he was seeing about them and having added the necessary work-rate to get results.
“I look at the numbers a lot to see different trends. It doesn’t mean you’re going to win hockey games, but it means you’re giving yourself the best chance to win consistently,” explained Keefe.
“Shots for, shots against, I believe we’re first in both of those in the League. Obviously, powerplay numbers, penalty kill. Goals for, goals against. Corsi. Possession stats, we’re first in the League there. Face-offs. If you can control a hockey game, you’re giving yourself the best chance to win.
“The numbers are trending in the right direction towards us being a good hockey team. It’s really all it does.
“Within that, you have to make big plays. You have to battle, compete. That’s what our team is doing right now, we’re getting inside guys’ hands and making it difficult.
“We defended hard from the inside out tonight. That’s the first time I’ve seen Sheffield look not that dangerous.
“The previous times we’ve played them, they’ve looked very, very dangerous. I didn’t think they were very dangerous tonight.
“Probably not their best, but our guys made it very difficult on them to get inside, and any time they did turn a corner and threw pucks into the middle, our sticks were there and broke it up to go the other way.
“That’s a credit to our guys, the commitment to the cause knowing the magnitude of that game.
“Over the last four or five years, the team that’s first in those categories has won the League. I know that because we’ve been that team for a lot of years, and last year Sheffield was and they won the League.”
The numbers look good in the League standings, too. Now boasting a 12-4-2 record, the Giants are six points behind the Cardiff Devils in the table but, crucially, have three games in hand which would take them level at the top should they win them all.
But by way of warning, Keefe believes they still have to dig in as a team, particularly during a busy December that contains seven more games before the calendar flips to 2025, if they are to claim top spot outright.
“Everyone at the start believes you can become champions, but you don’t know what that means until you live it and go through the trenches together and you start to build that trust in each other. When you do that, that’s when special things happen,” added the head coach.
“We feel we’re in the process of that. We need to be consistent for that trust to build within the group.
“Earlier in the season, there were some big moments for this group, but we felt we gave it away a little bit. Over the last couple weeks, we’ve been gaining ground and momentum and building trust.
“We don’t want to give any of that trust or belief back. We don’t want to give any other teams life.
“For us, it’s about us and the two points. That’s all that matters, not bad calls, bad travel, anything that can stray your mind from winning, you’ve got to block that out. That’s noise, and we’ve got to focus on the two points and that’s it.
“Every night, reset and go again. We’ll enjoy tonight, but we’ve got Coventry coming into our building on Wednesday and they’ve beaten us once here before. We need to be at our best again.”