A banked point and overtime loomed, but a pair of Belfast Giants goals inside the last minute and just 9 seconds apart, broke up a 1-1 tie and sent the visiting club away with a 3-2 win over the Flames on Spectrum ice.
Ben Lake started the Giants night with the go ahead goal less than 4 minutes in. Flames killed a penalty straight after and were forced to do so again in the later minutes to keep just a goal off the pace to start the 2nd.
In the 28th minute, Spectrum’s men levelled on their own powerplay thanks to Joshua Waller who made it a goal each and it remained that way through the end of the session.
About halfway through the 3rd, Giants looked like they edged in front, but the goal was wiped off as they were assessed a penalty during the sequence. Flames couldn’t take advantage with the extra skater, and neither could Giants when they had a chance not long after that. Giants failed on another powerplay, but back to even, and just 58 seconds from time, Joash Roach bagged the winner before Pierre-Olivier Morin put up the insurance that turned out to be needed because Brett Ferguson scored a buzzer beater while his club skated with an empty net and an extra attacker.
Eamon McAdam made 40 saves on 43 shots while Tom McCollom for Giants was 24 of 26.
“That is a loss that will keep some of us awake tonight,” said Paul Dixon.
“When you are a minute away from at least a point, especially against the league leaders, you like to think you can figure out a way to make sure you get it. Eamon had a terrific game and in the first 16-17 minutes where we didn’t have a lot of possession, he made sure we were still in it when we finally started to push back a bit more.”
“We got a powerplay goal and did a great job of killing some high stress penalties all night, so we did a lot of good things we can be happy with. Having said that, getting scored on twice in the last minute that close to overtime is a very tough pill to swallow, but we will have to put it behind us and re-group for the schedule ahead.”
