Hull Stingrays 2-3 Belfast Giants
The Hull Stingrays tonight fell to their second home defeat against the Belfast Giants this season, narrowly losing out to the title contenders by three goals to two in a scrappy affair at the Hull Arena.
The match-up was the Northern Irish sides first fixture for two weeks following the re-arrangement of a number of their games due to Great Britain's successful trip to Japan and pit GB's two netminders - Ben Bowns and Stephen Murphy - against each other.
The home side got off to a great start following their mid-week defeat in Fife, Matty Davies perfectly controlling a defence-splitting pass only for GB number one Murphy to deny the ensuing chance minutes in.
On his first shift enforcer Ryan Hand - who may have shed the gloves against Belfast enforcer Adam Keefe - was on the end of an innocuous shoulder from the Giants defenceman in front of the Giants net and immediately hit the floor. The Canadian appeared to feel the after-affects of the collision and immediately left the ice - he was seemingly used sparingly throughout the game and lacked the impact of recent weeks.
The Rays looked confident, with their passing, control of the game and powerplay noticeably better than it had been for large parts this season and shots raining in on Murphy - though they were surprisingly outshot 14-12 in the first period. Nevertheless, despite the positive start to the game, they failed to make their decent start to the game pay and that would later cost them.
Unsurprisingly, the league leading Giants stepped it up a notch in the middle period and the Rays struggled to cope with the speedy, determined onslaught.
Outshooting the Rays 17-9 in a dominant second stanza - the Giants opened the scoring with a simple one-time goal from Craig Peacock, who found plenty of space between Kurtis Dulle and Jeff Smith in front to fire home after a neat pass from behind the net by Noah Clarke.
Suffering a mini-collapse due to sustained Belfast pressure, the Rays then conceded again just over a minute-and-a-half later as Andrew Fournier ghosted between Martin Ondrej and Shane Lovdahl to slot past Bowns unassisted.
A third Belfast goal then materialised on 32.57, as Robby Sandrock bulleted a trademark slapshot home on the powerplay for a sound and well-deserved three goal lead for the visitors.
However, with the storm seemingly weathered, Jereme Tendler's speculative long-range wristshot beat Murphy to finally give Sylvain Cloutier's side the goal they so deserved in the first period two minutes heading into the second intermission - giving them hope heading into the third.
Doug Christiansen's side continued their dominance at the beginning of the final stanza but the Stingrays somehow still found themselves well within a shot of snatching a point with ten minutes to play - despite a somewhat scrappy showing overall.
With 7.53 to play Jason Silverthorn took the initiative and slotted home a shorthanded goal moments after Dominic Osman had rung the post on the break. The comeback was, seemingly, on.
Unfortunately, the Rays fragmented offence - in part due to the Giants shutdown of Janis Ozolins - couldn't muster an equalising goal as they squandered a late powerplay before failing to challenge the Giants goal with Bowns pulled in favour of an extra outskater. Their biggest and best chance for a leveller came through Cloutier but the player-coach could only fire agonisingly wide just seconds before the buzzer to hand the Giants the victory.
The Stingrays - who encouragingly ran Belfast very close despite not being at their best - travel to Edinburgh tomorrow night to take on the Capitals in front of what is expected to be a big crowd at Murrayfield.
FBB Three Stars
1. Ben Bowns
2. Matty Davies
3. Jason Silverthorn
