Belfast Giants shutout the Devils to be crowned Challenge Cup champions

Jackson Whistle posted a 37-save shutout for the Giants en route to lifting the first trophy of the season.

The first period started balanced, with the Devils creating good pressure but the Giants dangerous on the break.

The Giants opened the scoring at 6.35 when a Gabe Bast shot rebounded perfectly for Ciaran Long to bat it home.

While the Devils had half chances, they were caught the other way with 56 seconds remaining in the period.

The Giants broke three-on-one where Scott Conway fed JJ Piccinich to double their advantage just before the break.

However the visitors had drawn up getting back into the game in the second period, two goals in under three minutes put them very much on the back foot.

A rim around the boards by Cody Donaghey took a weird bounce and landed straight on the stick of Jordan Kawaguchi to fire past Mac Carruth 89 seconds into the middle period.

Then, 76 seconds later, Mark Cooper’s top corner shot from the slot found its way past Carruth to make it 4-0.

The Devils’ bench immediately called a timeout to settle the squad after going down a further.

The Devils had chances as they pushed back towards the end of the period, the best falling to Kohen Olischefski at the far post, but Whistle was in no mood to be beaten.

Period three saw the Giants smother the game out. Cardiff pushed but saw Joey Martin denied by an excellent low pad save by Whistle, while throws across the next failed to make any contact.

Whistle held on for his shut out, and the Giants celebrated their first Challenge Cup title since 2023.

Speaking after the his team picked up the Challenge Cup a delighted Giants’ head coach Adam said: “I thought we were great throughout tonight's game. Cardiff did have a big push early in the game which I didn’t like that too much.

“But we weathered that pressure from Cardiff well. Jackson played another great game for us in goals.

“From that point on, once we started to score some goals I thought we were fantastic defensively.

“We did have a little breakdown but thanks to Jackson they weren’t able to get their hopes up or get to many grade A chances in front of goal.

“It was a clean sheet tonight so I have to be delighted for Jackson and the whole team, it was tremendous effort from them all.”

Getting the opening goal after six minutes from Ciaran Long in the game helped to settle some final nerves.

Keefe said: “That goal definitely helped settle those nerves. Cardiff were pushing us in the early stages of that period so we wanted to get a good reply to them.

“That goal helped to settle the game down for us which is what we wanted to do, we wanted to take more control of the game which is how we play games.

“Credit to Ciaran Long he played fantastic tonight against the Devils.”