Blaze go down in goal fest

Genting Casino Coventry Blaze were beaten 10-8 by Belfast Giants in an extraordinary Elite League encounter at the Skydome.

Kris Beech opened the scoring for Giants after just 39 seconds before Jeff Mason added a second at 3.07 which prompted a Blaze time-out.

Neil Trimm pulled a goal back on the powerplay at 4.54 but markers from Brandon Benedict (5.57) and Mike Radja (8.56) saw Giants lead 4-1. Belfast

However, Blaze levelled by the end of the first period with powerplay strikes from Drew Fisher (12.53) and Brett Robinson (17.40) followed by a goal from captain Ashley Tait (18.51).

Tait grabbed his second just nine seconds into the middle session with Cale Tanaka scoring Blaze’s fourth powerplay marker of the night at 21.33.

In a topsy-turvy game, James Desmarais (26.03 powerplay) and Radja (28.03 powerplay) tied it up at 6-6 before the latter netted his hat-trick at 29.38.

Darryl Lloyd’s short-handed effort extended Giants’ advantage 63 seconds into the final period and Mark Garside made it 9-6 at 43.43.

Kevin Noble (Blaze) fought with Giants captain Adam Keefe 15 seconds later and further powerplay goals from Carl Lauzon (50.54) and Mike Quesnele (52.53) made it a one-goal game.

Mason registered his second of the night at 56.01 which proved the end of the scoring as Blaze were unable to make it a four-point weekend after Saturday’s shoot-out victory in Belfast.

Coach Chuck Weber said: “It was nuts. I am pretty sure I have never given up 10 goals in a game in my coaching career. I have never been part of something like that.

“Just like Saturday night we were down one going into the third but we gave up a short-handed goal and that really hurt us. Had we scored on the powerplay and made it 7-7, who knows?

“But we started to find some line combinations and got some chemistry and we got some output from some of the imports we had been hard on from a scoring standpoint.

“It was a crazy game but the guys showed a lot of character to battle back from being down 4-1 and they never stopped believing. There were a lot of positives.

“We now go back to work to try and weave everything together and clean a few things up along the way.”

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