13 Jan 2024, 19:00 | Regular season | SSE Arena Belfast |
Belfast Giants | 4-2 | Nottingham Panthers |
Periods: Shots: | 2-1 (9-10) | 1-0 (20-7) | 1-1 (15-10) | Total: 44-27 |
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Referees: Halas/Lukosevicius  |  Spectators: 7009 |
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Goals and assists
Belfast Giants completed a weekend double over Nottingham Panthers
with a 4-2 win on Saturday night in front of over 7,000 fans at the SSE
Arena.
Having only combined for three goals in 60 minutes on
Friday night, the Giants and Panthers ran up the same total in the
opening 20 minutes in part two of their double-header.
3:50 was on
the clock when nice passing from the Giants on the powerplay saw Ben
Lake shoot and Greg Printz put in the rebound from the top of the crease
to open the scoring for the home side. The Giants' powerplay struck
again, this time just after the Panthers had returned to four skaters,
with Printz feeding Bobby MacIntyre on the far side of the zone to
double the lead. Nottingham stayed in the game through a nice Hugo Roy
finish off a Carl Neill feed for a powerplay goal with three minutes
left in the first period.
The crucial next goal came just short of
15 minutes into the second. Ara Nazarian and Ben Lake combined for a
2-on-1 play with the former finishing it off to extend the Giants' lead
out to 3-1.
Otto Nieminen brought the Panthers back to within one,
again, 3:26 into the final period as they refused to back down. The
goal that settled things came with 10:40 left to play off the stick of
Oliver Cooper. He picked the puck up on his own blue line, skated into
the Panthers' zone, cut in from the wing and beat Rok Stojanovič for an
excellent goal to give Belfast a 4-2 lead. This time, the two-goal lead
held and the Giants moved into the second place in the standings.