Belfast’s twelve of the best with three more needed to secure the league title

Stena Line Belfast Giants require only three more regulation time victories to lift the long awaited Rapid Solicitor Elite League trophy after yet another perfect weekend of results.

Steel town Sheffield hosted Friday night’s massive encounter for the Giants in the first of three games between these two clubs that could decide the destination of this year’s league title. The Steelers have still to play twice more in Belfast’s Odyssey Arena on Friday and Saturday 16th and 17th March.

Belfast went into the game as league leaders with a seven-point advantage. However, Sheffield still had three games in hand over the Giants. In the end, it was an excellent night for the visitors as Belfast came away with the extra point after a penalty shootout.

Only the one goal separated the teams at the end of the first period and it came the way of the Giants new top goal scorer Robert Dowd on the power play putting them in front late in the first period.

The teams traded goals in the second period with the hosts drawing level with a power play strike from Jason Hewitt. Having got themselves back in the game the Steelers gave up a second power play goal seventy seconds later as Jon Pelle put the visitors in front once again.

The Giants had the momentum by then until a misdirected shot off Jeff Mason skate from Lee Esders found the net for the Steelers tying up the game at 2-2. Neither team could break the deadlock during the extra time period so the game entered that dreadful penalty shoot-out phase to find a winner.

In the penalty shootout after the first round of three shots each both teams had scored one and missed two. So it entered into sudden death and Craig Peacock made his count whilst Steve Birnstill missed for the Steelers and the Giants collected the extra point.

After that huge step towards the first Elite League title the Giants came home to face Braehead Clan who were still competing for a fourth place Elite League finish and proving to be very worthy opponents.

However the Giants are finding a way to finish off games early and Belfast took a four-goal lead after just seven minutes. Robert Dowd, Ryan Crane and Paul Deniset all scored leading Braehead to change their puck stopper to reduce the embarrassment.

Craig Peacock, Jeff Mason then Dowd’s second finished of the home teams scoring in their twelfth victory in a row. Jade Galbraith got the Clans only marker in a 6-1 comfortable Giants win.

The Belfast Giants are definitely the in-form team to lift the league title. They enter the first leg of the Challenge Cup final in the Odyssey Area on Wednesday on a twelve game winning streak

After Saturday night’s game Belfast Head Coach Doug Christiansen had this to say. “It certainly was a huge weekend for us. We thought before the weekend if we could take all four points it would put us in a position to achieve some of our goals. There still is a long way to go but from my point of view all we can do is worry about ourselves. We played well during this twelve game winning streak, not always exciting but winning.

Our victory in Sheffield was a team effort, which wouldn’t have counted for much if we didn’t defeat Braehead who are a very good team. Getting up a six am after a great win in Sheffield with the long travel back. I can only salute our team for performing so professionally. Before the game our guys were buzzing and during the first ten minutes of the game we just devastated the Clan with four goals from different players sticks from our team.

The fans played a great part in the win as the players just fed of the crowd’s appreciation and support of the teams overall performance. We finally found a way to kill off teams from the get go. That is what we did against the Clan sometime I would have liked to do earlier in the season but coming up to the two big championships in the Challenge Cup and League title I most certainly welcome it. Concluded Christiansen

Craig Peacock was pleased to get the game winner in Sheffield during the penalty shootout but said. “We are all focus on getting a good lead against Nottingham in the first round of the Challenge Cup final on Wednesday night in the Odyssey Arena We felt we let the fans down last season and would like to rectify that lost this time around. We hope to follow up on our dominance showed over the weekend against the Panthers. We played well against Nottingham this season recently winning twice in their barn, thus eliminating them from the title race, which was a huge boosted for us in our quest for the Elite League trophy.

But that was a few weeks ago and the Challenge Cup is another competition in which the Panthers are the titleholders for the last two seasons. Nottingham is not only going to be up for this game and listening to the talk from around the league they have every intention of keeping the title.

The Giants obviously have other ideas and I think with the goals coming off the stick of a huge range of players from our team I feel we have every chance of success. Concluded Peacock who father in the past used to be a Nottingham Panther player. Craig confirmed ever since his move to Belfast his dad had become a faithful follower of the Giants.