THE Belfast Giants had to settle for a three-point weekend last night when they lost 5-4 to the Dundee Stars after a penalty shoot-out in Scotland after cutting the gap on the Cardiff Devils to four points with a 3-2 overtime win over the Elite League leaders 24 hours earlier.
Perhaps feeling the effects of the long coach journey, the Giants conceded two goals in the first eight minutes last night and trailed 3-1 at the first intermission before fighting back with two final period goals after conceding again.
Mikael Lidhammar broke the deadlock on 3:21 and Kevin Bruisten added a second fewer than four minutes later before Jim Vandermeer pulled one back on 18:11.
But only 56 seconds later, Bruisten restored the hosts’ twogoal advantage going into the break.
Things went from bad to worse when Vinny Scarsella made it 4-1 from a penalty-shot in the second period but Derrick Walser pulled a goal back a minute before the final intermission.
Blair Riley cut the deficit to the minimum two minutes into the final 20 after an assist from Mike Forney and the former tied things up with under three minutes left only for the Giants to lose on penalties after overtime had failed to break the deadlock.
On Saturday night, Chris Higgins scored his 20th goal of the season as the Giants stormed back from 2-0 down to beat the Devils much to the delight of player-coach Walser.
“Higgy has been real hot in overtime and he’s a dangerous guy if he gets into one-on-one situations and that’s what we try to do,” said Walser.
“Jackson Whistle also played well and he made some great stops but all the guys did their bit.
“We knew it was going to be tight and the game went back and forth as we had expected but fortunately we got the bounce to get the win.
“I thought we played a great game, both teams played really well but it was an even match. “We had a great week of practice and, on Friday in particular, there was some great intensity and the guys stepped up and believed in themselves.”
Cardiff looked to have been in the driving seat after goals from Matthew Myers and Patrick Asselin in each of the first two periods put them 2-0 ahead.
However, Riley replied for Belfast after being set up by Higgins and Forney and then Jonathan Boxill’s deflected effort after a long-range effort from Mike Quesnele tied things up. Man-of-the-match Whistle had to come to the rescue late on with two fine saves in the last couple of minutes as the game went into overtime.
Higgins, who had hit the winner in last week’s victory against Sheffield, continued the habit when he dispossessed an opponent behind the net and skilfully beat Ben Bowns for the winner 2:34 into the additional five minutes
