The 2nd of a pair of opening period Giants goals turned out to be the winner as the home team handed the visiting Flames a 3-1 defeat in the first of back to back clashes at Belfast.
Giants jumped in front on the strength of Kohei Sato and David Goodwin goals in the 10th and 16th minute, respectively.
Early in the 2nd, a major penalty and game misconduct for boarding to Oliver Cooper, led to a fight between him and Patrick Bajkov. More importantly for Flames, however, a 5 minute powerplay ensued, but they were unable to cut into the deficit and the period continued to its conclusion without any further score adjustments.
Goodwin’s 2nd of the contest about halfway through the final set extended their lead before a Bradley Lalonde goal inside the last 2 minutes while they skated with an extra man in lieu of netminder Taz Burman ruined Jackson Whistle’s bid for a clean sheet.
Burman made 17 saves on 20 shots against Jackson Whistle who was 39 for 40.
“It is not what we were looking for to open up our games here in Belfast,” said Paul Dixon.
“We have touched on it before but we can’t go through 5 powerplays in a game, in this case including a 5 minute Major, and strike out on all of them. Even one goal across that entire stretch could have made a big difference.”
“We just spent too much of the night, too far behind without taking some of those chances.”
“We are here again tomorrow night so we need to find a way to put away some of our chances and give ourselves an opportunity to close the weekend with a win, and that is what our guys will be keen to do.”
