Jackson Whistle backstops Belfast Giants into finals weekend

The Giants took a one goal aggregate lead to Coventry for the second leg of their playoff series, after beating the Blaze 2-1 in front of 7,411 fans at the SSE Arena.

A scoreless and tight opening period began this quarter-final series, Taran Kozun notably pulling off an excellent pad save to keep things all square.

The Giants went ahead just 19 seconds into period two with Greg Printz passing from below the goal line to Oliver Cooper to slot past Kozun and open the scoring.

On a Cameron Pound tripping minor, Mitch Cook reacted fastest to Jackson Whistle spilling a JD Dudek shot as Coventry tied the game at 24.58.

The Giants survived another penalty kill before making use of a man-advantage of their own - Daniel Tedesco's throw on the net bounced off Ben Lake at the top of the crease to put the Giants back ahead with 31.28 played.

That was where the scoring stopped, with just one of the three periods on the night producing goals.

The final period ended without penalties and 19 shots across both goalies.

A man of the match performance saw Jackson Whistle stop 21 of 22 shots to backstop the Giants into the playoff finals weekend.

Whistle prevented the Blaze’s best chance of the period with just under eight minutes to play, stopping Johnny Curran who opted to shoot himself on a two-on-one rush.

The GB international also denied Mitch Cook from point-blank range as the Blaze looked to use a late powerplay to level the tie.

Taran Kozun stopped Mark Cooper’s breakaway attempt as the Blaze lost the puck while on another powerplay inside the final 10 seconds of the period.

The Blaze did everything but sore in the middle period, underlined by an Ian McNulty one-timer stopped only by the sliding Whistle, while James Shearer came close throwing the puck on the net.

Those missed chances came back to bite the hosts who saw Daniel Tedesco score in close for the Giants at 26:43 in a period where the visitors also failed to take advantage of a three-on-one.

Ara Nazarian almost increased the Giant’s lead when Shearer opted to clear up the middle rather than around the boards, but the Belfast forward shot over from close range.

Whistle thwarted the Blaze time and again in the third period to the Giants ahead by two on aggregate.

With time running out for the Blaze, Kozun was pulled with 2.20 to play and then again with 48 seconds remaining, with a timeout from Danny Stewart in between.

With one second left, Danny Kristo tipped an Ian McNulty shot past Whistle to break his shutout, but it was too late for the Blaze’s chance of the reaching final four.

The Giants face the Cardiff Devils on Saturday in the second sem-final (faceoff time of 7pm).

The Sheffield Steelers face the Guildford Flames in the earlier semi-final, with a faceoff time of 3pm.