Top three with four point weekends in EIHL

In what was a closely contested game at the Odyssey Arena, the league leading Belfast Giants secured both the points with a solid victory. After a scoreless first, Aaron Clarke scored for the Giants in the 23rd minute, but the Clan equalised on the powerplay five minutes later, Drew Bannister beating Stephen Murphy to tie the score. The Clan took the lead five minutes into the third period, as new signing Mike Wirll fired home, but the Giants would not be stopped, and Paul Deniset scored to tie the score and send the game to overtime. Both teams went close in the overtime period, but the game would head to a shootout, and Robert Dowd scored the winner in the fifth round.

It was a comfortable shutout for Stephen Murphy in the battle of the league’s best against the league’s worst, as he only had to make fourteen saves for his sides victory. The Giants controlled the play from start to finish, but Garrett Zemlak, one of the few shining lights for the Flyers in their debut EIHL season had another great game. Despite their domination, it took the Giants until the third period to finally break the deadlock, as veteran forward George Awada scored. Aaron Clarke added the second before Robert Dowd scored into an empty net to seal the points.

The Steelers continued their good form with a closely fought win against Richard Hartmann’s Capitals. Goals from Mike Ramsay and Jason Hewitt gave the Steelers a 2-0 lead at the end of the first, before two minutes of madness, where the Steelers scored twice through Jonathan Phillips and Colt King, and the Capitals got on the board through Marcis Zembergs. The Latvian forward added a goal in the third period, but it wasn’t enough to claw back the deficit.

 

The Panthers kept up the pressure on Belfast and Sheffield with a big home win against fierce rivals Coventry Blaze. Superb penalty killing from the Panthers won them the game, as Coventry could not get anything from ten powerplays. The Blaze went behind in the 2nd minute of the game as Jordan Fox fired past Peter Hirsch in the Blaze net.  It was a bad tempered game, as Guilliaume Lepine of the Panthers and Bryan Jurynec of the Blaze fought after 89 seconds, Lepine picking up the extra 2+10 for instigating, and in the 26th minute Jurynec was given a 5+game penalty for kneeing. The Panthers led by a score of 5-0 at the end of the second period, Matt Francis scoring twice, and British internationals David Clarke and Matthew Myers scoring the goals which sealed the game for the Panthers. Young British defenceman, James Griffin, recently returned from over a month out with concussion scored his first goal in the EIHL in the 57th minute to give the travelling fans something to cheer about, but David-Alexandre Beauregard would close the scoring as he scored a shorthanded goal just over a minute later.

The Cardiff Devils put the Stingrays to the sword in a game that was much more one sided than the score would suggest. Cardiff jumped out to a five goal lead by the end of the second period, as six different goal scorers gave them a 6-1 lead. Dominic Osman scored a third period natural hatrick for the Stingrays, as they lit up Cardiff back-up goaltender Joseph Myers, but it was too little too late, and the Devils managed to hold them off to win the two points.

Mike Bayrack had a five point night for the Braehead Clan, as they picked up their second win in as many nights, defeating Scottish rivals Dundee Stars in a tight matchup at the Braehead Arena. The aforementioned Bayrack, who signed mid way through the season scored three goals and two assists, being involved on all his teams goals as they held on for the victory. Brock McPherson added a goal and three assists as well for the Clan. The Clan were leading 5-2 at the end of the second, but the Stars battled back in the third, scoring in the 48th minute through Jarrett Konkle, but it wasn’t enough, AJ McLean scoring a consolation goal with five seconds left to give a 5-4 final scoreline

In the second game in as many days between the Blaze and the Panthers, the Nottingham side marched into the Skydome and soundly defeated the Blaze once again. The Blaze led early on as Owen Fussey scored in the 10th minute, but from then on it was one way sailing. The flashpoint of the game came when Coventry netminder Peter Hirsch was thrown out of the game for punching Nottingham forward Marc Levers with his blocker, after an altercation between the two players.  New Nottingham signing Rhett Gordon had three assists in Sunday’s game.

In the pick of Sunday’s game, the Hull Stingrays tore the form book up as they picked up two vital points in their battle to finish in the playoff places. Both of the goals came in the second period, as Jason Silverthorn, by far Hull’s MVP of the season cancelled out Kenton Smith’s opener 90 seconds before. The game eventually went to a shootout after Christian Boucher in the Stingrays net saved a Scott Matzka penalty shot in overtime, and Boucher made three more stops in the shootout to give his team the two points. The Devils outshot the Stingrays 49 to 29, and it’s no surprise that Boucher was the man of the match for the Stingrays.

In a repeat of the previous nights fixture, the Sheffield Steelers came away from their weekend in Edinburgh with four points in the bag as they once again beat the Capitals at the Murrayfield Ice Arena. The Steelers got five goals from their blueline, as Steve Birnstill scored a hatrick and Matt Stephenson added a brace in the victory. The EIHL’s leading goal scorer Rene Jarolin scored his 35th of the season for the Capitals, but they simply did not have enough firepower to compete with Sheffield.

It was a big win for the Flyers, as they moved off of the foot of the table for the first time all season after beating the Stars on the road. The Kirkcaldy side, who have slowly been improving as the weeks have past put the Stars to the sword, scoring twice in the first and twice again in the third periods. Garrett Zemlak made 35 saves and Tomas Hartmanis had two assists in their side’s victory

 

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