Excel Hull Stingrays 3-5 Belfast Giants
The Excel Hull Stingrays fell to their fourth defeat on the bounce tonight at the Hull Arena, putting in a third positive home performance of the year, only to go down 5-3 to the league leading Belfast Giants.
Once again the Rays, who were without brothers Lee and Craig Mitchell, handed their opponents a one goal lead early on as the Giants Brett Hemingway capitalised at the backdoor of Christian Boucher's net to punish a poor line change.
In man of the match performance Jason Silverthorn then manufactured a number of chances before his blocked shot fell to Jereme Tendler on seven minutes, who fired high past Belfast keeper Stephen Murphy to level the scores at one.
As well as conceding early on, Sylvain Cloutier's side have also picked up an unhealthy habit of allowing goals against shortly after scoring themselves. Although they have attempted the eradicate that in recent weeks, the Giants were allowed to take the lead seconds later as Boucher poked at the puck having misjudged a dump into the Rays zone to let Jon Gleed to hit the net.
In a fairly even first period the home side then forced an impressive double save from netminder Murphy before Mike Hoffman objected to Cloutier crashing the net to force a Belfast defenceman on top of the Giants keeper, livening the game up physically.
As the period came to a close Hoffman and Cloutier continued their cat and mouse duel with both looking for the advantage heading into a first intermission in which Belfast would lead by one.
Belfast came out in the second looking to impose their undoubted quality on the game and that is exactly what Doug Christiansen's team did.
Former NHLer Brad Smyth was handed a great chance on a 5-on-3 powerplay before Hemingway netted his second of the game and the Giants second powerplay goal to extend their lead to two.
While the Rays put pressure late on, this had been Belfast's period and a suspected broken hand to Ryan Lake in the third period would make it hard for the Rays, who reverted Kriss Grundmanis to forward and switched down to two lines for the final third.
Belfast didn't let up at the start of the final stanza either, as Hemingway netted a perfect replica of his second to complete his hat-trick on the powerplay six minutes after the break.
Former NHLer Brad Smyth netted the goal he had threatened all night on 49 minutes before the home side mounted an unlikely come back as Murphy produced a juicy rebound from yet another Silverthorn shot to allow Konstantin Kalmikov to fire into a near empty net in an uncharacteristically sloppy performance from the Ukrainian.
Three minutes later Tendler scored his second of the game on the powerplay firing a speculative shot home as that come back gained yet more momentum at 5-3.
Silverthorn was at the heart of everything good that the Rays produced and, after hitting the post, he wondrously danced his way through the Giants defence only to be denied again by Murphy.
The Giants netminder again proved his worth as the game came to a close, denying Uusivirta from close in before making a double save from Silverthorn as Christiansen's side eventually managed to shut the game down at 5-3.
For the third successive game the Rays produced a performance worthy of a point and, although the Giants certainly deserved the win, the home side made them work for the two points particularly at the end and once again proved they can skate with the Elite League's big spenders.
Having put in three decent performances at the Hull Arena, claiming just one point, Sunday night sees the Newcastle Vipers travel to the Hull Arena in which the victory is more important than the performance for the home side, who will be looking for revenge for the defeat suffered at Whitley Bay last weekend.
Rays rating: 7
Stingray goalscorers: Tendler (2), Kalmikov
Belfast goalscorers: B.Hemingway (3), Smyth, Gleed
SOG: 43-39
PIM: 8-10
FBB Three Stars 1: Silverthorn (0+2) 2: Tendler (2+0) 3: Davies (0+1)
