Blaze put in a Giant effort to finally halt Belfast bogey
HEAD coach Danny Stewart praised a battling performance from Genting Casino Coventry Blaze as they ended a winless streak of 13 games against Belfast Giants.
A 6-3 win over the current Elite League Champions at the Skydome Arena on Sunday evening was just the tonic ahead of the biggest game of the season so far when the Blaze meet Manchester Storm tomorrow at the Skydome Arena (7.30pm).
The winner will take a place in the quarter-finals of the Challenge Cup while the loser will be dumped out of the competition.
Stewart said Coventry produced plenty of plus points in beating the Giants to take into tomorrow’s clash.
“It was a gutsy win in a back and forth game,” he said.
“I thought our physicality was better than it has been all year, especially against Belfast I felt they outmuscled us a couple of weeks back, so there were a lot of positives.”
Without David Clements on defence because of injury, the Blaze found themselves behind at 8.38 on Sunday when Patryk Wronka found the slightest of gaps to beat Jamie Phillips at his near post.
Coventry were level when man-ofthe-match Charles Corcoran scored on a breakaway short-handed, assisted by Johnny Curran (25.18).
Following a huge hit by Justin Hache on Bobby Farnham, the Belfast player recovered quickly, racing to the net to finish a pass from former Blaze forward Ben Lake to put the visitors 2-1 ahead at 31.21.
A fortuitous bounce seconds later meant Corcoran (31.44) levelled and moved up to joint-second in the league’s point scoring charts.
After Lake was denied on a penaltyshot, Curran was again the architect at 33.46 when he found David Broll at the backdoor to give Blaze a 3-2 lead on the powerplay.
The game was level again at 40.53 when Giants Captain Matt Pelech took advantage of a defensive breakdown to make it 3-3.
With another powerplay goal, topscorer Evan Bloodoff put Coventry 4-3 ahead (47.23), his 11th of the league season.
It followed a lengthy discussion between the officials and Blaze all but sealed the two points when Hache’s shot was re-directed into the net by the in-form Matt Pohlkamp (55:12).
Chasing the two-goal deficit, Belfast pulled goalie Shane Owen for the extra skater with a few minutes remaining, allowing Broll to score his second of the night into the empty net (57.33).