09 Mar 2025, 18:00 | Regular season | Guildford Spectrum |
Guildford Flames | 1-2 | Belfast Giants |
Periods: Shots: | 0-1 (8-16) | 1-0 (11-10) | 1-2 (7-17) | Total: 26-43 |
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Referees: #3 Tom Pering,#48 Oliver Truswell  |  Spectators: 1933 |
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Goals and assists
Two goals in the final 58 seconds tole Belfast Giants the two points against Guildford Flames at a sold-out Spectrum in Surrey.
"To
play a solid 60 minutes was the focus today. We've been playing well
but just not getting the results of late, so it was nice to see one
through," said game-winner Josh Roach. "I think a couple of lucky
bounces was probably the difference in the end. We hit a couple of
posts, both goalies played well, and I think both teams actually played a
good game."
Belfast were first to light the lamp just before the
four minute mark of the first period. Bo Hanson picked up the puck in
the neutral zone, worked it over to Ben Lake who made a nice move to get
past two defence man and then slot it past the blocker side of Eamon
McAdam with 3:49 played.
Almost instantly after McAdam was back
under pressure with a few good chances for Belfast to increase their
lead. Guildford's best chance in the period was a chance from Jack
Jacome who drove hard at the net but Tom McColumn was quick to stop him
from getting the rebound. The Giants led by one through 20 minutes.
The
Flames upped the intensity in period two and were rewarded. Ethan
Strang slide the puck over to Josh Waller who was able to slip the puck
between the pads of McCollum to tie it at 27:46. The Giants saw a shot
come back off McAdam's post as they almost went ahead, but the scores
were tied heading into the third.
"Making sure we came out hard
against Belfast was important," explained Flames' Charlie Curti. "They'd
lost a few coming into this one but they're really structured and you
can't under-estimate them. "We played a good game, just didn't get what
we deserved in the end."
An early kill by the Giants came after
they thought they'd scored - Scott Conway batted the puck into the net,
but play was whistled down for an interference minor on JJ Piccinich in
the build-up. Belfast then called a timeout at 48:28 as they were about
to go on the powerplay. The Flames survived two minors as the clock
ticked down, but then themselves hit a post to deny them going ahead. On
the very next play, Piccinich saw a shot come back off the crossbar.
With
the game seemingly heading to overtime, Josh Roach rocketed a shot off a
Conway faceoff win past McAdam to put the Giants back ahead with 58
seconds to play. On the resulting faceoff, loose play by the Flames in
their own end allowed Jordan Kawaguchi to make it 3-1 just nine seconds
later. Brett Ferguson added a consolation for the Flames on the buzzer,
but it was a win for the Giants in a game which 60 seconds before had
looked like it might take overtime to decide.
"It was exciting to
see that one go in!" added Roach. "We'd talked about a faceoff play and
it worked out as good as we'd planned. I made a good shot there, and
then it was great to see the Kawaguchi goal go in on the next shift to
give us some breathing room."
Roach concluded: "I think it was a
good game by both teams, we're proud of our effort. We controlled parts
of that game against s really good team. Just towards the end they had a
nice shot, and that was the difference."