DAVID Rutherford will play through the pain barrier for the Belfast Giants in tonight's Elite League clash with Manchester Storm at the SSE Arena after breaking his nose during last Sunday's road win over the Nottingham Panthers.
The forward, who has proved a useful acquisition since signing from the Edinburgh Capitals 13 months ago, was the innocent victim in an altercation with Panthers' Great Britain international Robert Farmer.
Farmer was thrown out of the game for checking to Rutherford's head and was handed a further five-match penalty by the Elite League's disciplinary body, who are responsible for player safety.
That means he will miss the two return fixtures with the Giants in Belfast later this month in the middle of a run of five successive home games for Rutherford's team.
"I don't look too pretty right now, with a busted nose and two black eyes, and when I had relatives over from Canada during the week, I had to wear a pair of shades when we had some pictures taken up at the Giant's Causeway," said the 29-year-old.
"But other than that I feel fine and there's no way a broken nose will stop me and I am looking forward to playing against Manchester."
Giants player-coach Derrick Walser has admitted that, barring an unlikely series of results, his team are playing for second place as they still trail Cardiff Devils by seven points with the same number of games left.
"We've had a phenomenal year and now we just want to finish strong and see where we end up but we don't want an ugly finish," he said.
"We're in the mode of preparing for the play-offs but we don't want to look too far ahead we just want to prepare for the next game, win that, then win the next one and so on.
"Winning is contagious but so too is losing and we want to continue playing good hockey and continue to work on our weaknesses and the things we want to improve on."
The earlier games with Manchester have been close affairs, in the main, this season and on their last visit to Belfast they went home with a 2-1 victory, ending an 11-game unbeaten run for Walser's men.
"They have played us really well this season and we've let our guard down against them before and they have capitalised," added the 38-year-old Canadian.
"We've only one game this week, while they play on Friday night and then have to travel so, hopefully, we can catch them out, get off to a good start and get a couple of goals up early on."
