Giants 3, Bison 1 

It wasn’t pretty but the Giants got the job done and take a two goal lead into Basingstoke.  With one foot now in the final four weekend in Nottingham, the Giants must finish off the job and secure their place.  Mark Dutiaume opened the scoring with one of the quickest goals in Giants history after 9 seconds, and Graeme Walton soon made it two after Basingstoke had tied the game with his first ever competitive goal at the Odyssey arena.  It was a milestone moment and George Awada was quick to snap up the puck for him.  It turned out to be the game winner as Basingstoke failed to score another and Jeff Hutchins grabbed the crucial third to give the Giants breathing space going into tomorrow night.

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Tonight Todd Kelman will play his final game in the Odyssey arena.  After seven great seasons with the Giants Todd will be hanging up the skates in favour of taking over the teams General Managers position.  His Giants career however will not end for a few more games we hope as the Giants push for a playoff title, but tonights game is the final home game of the season and it’ll be an emotional one for Todd Kelman.

Tonights opponents Basingstoke finished up 7th in the league and will be looking to spring an upset on the Giants.  The second leg of the contest takes place tomorrow night in Basingstoke with the aggregate winner progressing to the final-four playoffs in Nottingham.

Heres to some good old time playoff hockey.  Get them playoff beards growing boys!!!

Shawn Skiehar has been talking in today’s Belfast Telegraph about his hopes for the playoff champagne.  Ski has really been in the battles of late dropping the gloves on a number of occasions as the season has came to a close.  His biggest foe of the year has been Manchester’s Brett Cloutier (originally with Sheffield) whom Ski has went with on three occasions.  On all three Ski was the aggressor showing why he’ll always stick up for his team-mates and not let the Giants be walked over.

The last of the three tilts with Cloutier was on Saturday night with Ski finally getting the better of the leagues toughest man and knocking him down.  In two other fights that night Hutchins was taken down by Campbell while Ruff in his only fight of the year also tangled with Cloutier putting up a good battle before Cloutier got his best punches after Ruff appeared to have finished his fight.  A tad cheap and probably a reason for Ski going after him later in the game.

View the Manchester highlights including all three fights

Skiehar is a guy the fans have debated about all year.  Many have bizarrely said he hasn’t been fighting enough this year, that he wont ‘goon’ it up when we’re getting beat and that he hasn’t brought enough to the team on the scoring front.  I’ve found all that to be nonsense for the following reasons:

1. Skiehar finished the regular season with eight fights, third most ever in one season by a Giants player, tied with the eight Paxton Schulte had in 03-04 and behind only Paxton’s nine from 00-01 and the twelve set by Ski himself last season. 

Verdict: He’s clearly been fighting enough; he just goes about it quietly and has done a lot of the fighting on the road.

2. Ski is generally a player with a long fuse, he can fight but he doesn’t do it out of pure anger (well rarely), he doesn’t go taking needless penalties and gooning it up on opposition players.  Now although that’s fun to see sometimes, when Paxton Schulte played that kind of game in his forth season here the same fans criticising Ski for being to tame where lambasting Paxton for being to over the top. 

Verdict: Ski has clearly been sticking up for his team-mates when required.  He may not be winning every fight but then he’s not getting beat down either and each time he does fight it energises the Giants bench.  He doesn’t need to go around cheap-shotting to do that.

3. Skiehar is not a scorer, though when he does get goals they tend to be in the important games when it matters.  He had a great run of form in last seasons playoffs (bodes well for what stage of the season we’re now at).  Ski is primarily an energy player, a checking/defensive forward.  He’s a guy that will skate hard all night long, that will chase down the dump in’s and finish his checks.  He plays the first line penalty kill and won’t hesitate to lie down in front of a slapshot.

Oh and did we mention he wears an ‘A’ on his chest.  The guy clearly brings leadership to the team.

Verdict: If you read that and still don’t see the use for a Skiehar on any hockey team then you mustn’t really understand your hockey – every team needs a Skiehar and we’ll see exactly why in the next two playoff games.  Mark my words.

I’ve been a bit late in getting the final power rankings of the season in but these give an indication on each teams form into the final three weeks of the season. It’ll give you an idea of whos in form and who’s out of form going into the playoffs. Note that the bottom two teams in the rankings are eliminated from the playoffs already. Giants come in second in form after winning eight in a row they finished up with two defeats to end the year. Their playoff opponents this weekend, Basingstoke finished up 7th in form over the last three weeks.

Enjoy…

1.  (5)  Nottingham Panthers       +25 / 6gp  =  4.17
2.  (4)  Belfast Giants             +9 / 8gp  =  1.13
3.  (6)  Cardiff Devils             +9 / 8gp  =  1.13
4.  (3)  Coventry Blaze             +8 / 8gp  =  1.00
5.  (2)  Sheffield Steelers         +3 / 5gp  =  0.60
6.  (1)  Newcastle Vipers           -1 / 8gp  = -0.13
7.  (8)  Basingstoke Bison          -4 / 8gp  = -0.50
8.  (9)  Manchester Phoenix        -12 /11gp  = -1.09
9. (10)  Edinburgh capitals        -17 / 9gp  = -1.89
10. (7)  Hull Stingrays            -27 / 7gp  = -3.86

After what was their second best winning streak of all time the Giants lost some of their momentum heading into the playoffs by going 0 for 2 in their final two games, losing tonight 6-4 against Newcastle.  The Giants had lead for most of the contest but threw away a 4-3 lead with thirteen minutes to go.  The game included another fight, this time by J.P. Morin who dropped ‘em with Jeremy Cornish.  Giants goals came through Dutiaume, Hutchins, Courtenay and Kellman.

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