Having claimed top spot in the Elite League at the weekend, the Belfast Giants insisted they didn’t want to relinquish it any time soon, and they sent out a similar on-ice statement at The Spectrum Centre last night.
Head coach Adam Keefe accused his players of lacking energy in Sunday’s win over the Manchester Storm but they lacked none in a 5-2 win over Guildford Flames, racing into a two-goal lead at the first intermission through Scott Conway and Ciaran Long, before Jordan Kawaguchi and Gabe Bast made the result safe in the second.
Guildford did push back, Matt Alvaro striking at the end of the first period and Brett Ferguson’s powerplay marker early in the third giving them life, but Belfast, aided by a 17-save performance from the returning Tom McCollum in nets, had already done enough.
And Ben Lake would put the result beyond any doubt with 15.9 seconds remaining, the Great Britain centre sliding the puck into the empty night for their fifth and final goal to ensure the home side wouldn’t fight back.
Now 22-6-3 on the season, the League-leading Giants are three points clear of the second-placed Cardiff Devils, albeit having played one game more than their rivals, and are guaranteed to hold onto that position until at least Sunday when they head to Wales for a mouthwatering clash between the League’s top two teams.
Although the Giants’ discipline perhaps needed work, particularly in the third period as they were trying to kill the game off, they were helped by a strong 6-for-7 night on the penalty kill that shut down a dangerous Flames powerplay and enabled them to wrap up their fifth straight win and extend their lead at the top.
For how the game started, with the Giants on the back foot as Karl Boudrias sat for interference, the first period would be one that would end very positively for the Giants as Conway put them ahead at 12:16 with his 20th goal of the season, sniping into the top corner off a face-off before Long notched his third goal in four games when he squeezed a backhand effort past Eamon McAdam — 21 saves — from the tightest of angles at 15:04.
Alvaro would make it a one-goal game at 16:41 as he deposited the rebound off Jack Jacome’s initial shot to reduce the gap at the first intermission, but a slew-footing call on former Giants winger Daniel Tedesco, which saw the Italian international ejected from the game, tilted the ice firmly in the visitors’ favour.
They weren’t able to score on the major powerplay, despite putting plenty of pucks on McAdam’s net, but that wasn’t to matter as Adam Keefe’s side rode the momentum to two goals before the second intermission that effectively ended the game as a contest, Kawaguchi firing in from the slot at 32:22 for his 15th goal of the campaign and then Bast rifling in for his second goal in as many games with 36.9 seconds left to the break to extend the lead to three.
Belfast did try and give Guildford a way back in with a string of penalties early in the third period and on the third of them, a Lake kneeing call, Ferguson brought them back to within two at 46:35.
However, that was as close as they got. Although the Giants were still shipping penalties — Kawaguchi taking a seat for roughing and Pierre-Olivier Morin called for goaltender interference, too — the Flames couldn’t find a way to even reduce the gap to one let alone to take it to overtime.
And instead Lake would seal it in the dying seconds as he stripped the puck in neutral ice and sent it into the empty net for the fifth, sending Keefe’s men home happy and with their lead extended.