10 Jan 2025, 19:00 | Regular season | SSE Arena Belfast |
Belfast Giants | 2-0 | Nottingham Panthers |
Periods: Shots: | 1-0 (19-6) | 0-0 (8-13) | 1-0 (5-8) | Total: 32-27 |
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Referees: #14 Chris Wells, #45 Vytas Lukosevicius (LTU)  |  Spectators: 6622 |
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Goals and assists
Belfast Giants kept up the pressure on league leaders Cardiff Devils
with a shutout victory over Nottingham Panthers on Friday at the SSE
Arena.
Jackson Whistle stopped all 27 shots put on him. "It was
nice to do something for the team tonight. I thought we played pretty
well out there as a group too," said the Giants goalie. "The guys were
really diving about, trying to block shots, especially at the end of the
last two periods when they were really piling it on. The team just did a
great job, and every time you get a shutout it really is a team
effort."
Both sets of fans made their presence known in a sold-out
crowd of 6,622, as Nottingham fans arrived in numbers for the
double-header in Belfast.
Both the Giants and Panthers had early opportunities on the powerplay, but neither could capitalise.
Two
good chances fell to Mark Cooper, who had two breakaways in the space
of two minutes while the Giants killed a penalty. However, he was denied
well on both occasions by Jason Grande.
The Giants managed to
grab an opener with 40 seconds remaining. Ben Lake cut the puck back to
Jeff Baum in the left circle, who unleashed a bullet into the top corner
to put the Giants a goal up at 19:20.
It was a scoreless but entertaining second period as both sides had chances, but neither could capitalise on them.
The
best opportunity fell to Didrik Henbrant, who was played through with
only Jackson Whistle to beat. However, Whistle made himself big and
ensured that the Giants' clean sheet remained intact. Whistle made
further important saves to keep the Giants ahead, as they remained a
goal ahead going into the third period.
Having not managed to
score on a Ciaran Long holding minor with just over osts. ten minutes to
go, the Panthers rolled the dice by pulling Grande with 82 seconds
remaining. JJ Piccinich, however, found the empty net at 59:12 to wrap
up the game for the hosts.
"Winning tonight was huge, especially
in this league, you don't want to go on a losing streak," added Whistle.
"Every time you lose a game or two you've got to bounce back straight
away because everyone is kinda nipping at your heals and you're pushing
too to get first place so it's going to be a real battle from here going
forward."
The two teams will do it all again in Belfast on Saturday night.