Luciani gives Blaze win over Giants

Photo: Scott Stevens

Coventry Blaze came from three goals down to beat Belfast Giants at the Skydome on Sunday night, scoring twice in the third period to complete the turnaround.

“It was good, and great to see our fightback tonight,” began Alessio Luciani, who scored the winner for a Blaze team without a home win since November. “We’ve been in a lot of those one-goal games and have often fallen on the other end of them. We pushed through in the third and our power play stepped up when it needed to.”

The Blaze had the first real chance just 30 seconds in, but Belfast responded quickly and put Mat Robson to work. Just over two minutes into the game, Robson produced a superb glove save to deny the Giants on a 2-on-0 breakaway. Scott Conway took the first penalty of the night, though Coventry were unable to capitalise on the power play. As soon as the penalty expired, the Giants pushed play back into the Blaze zone.

Just before the halfway mark of the opening period, Artem Buzoverya  opened the scoring, firing a slapshot off a loose rebound past Alexis Gravel to give Coventry the lead. Around five minutes later, David Goodwin tied the game, snapping a shot into the top corner of Robson’s net to make it 1-1. Belfast thought they had gone ahead with 90 seconds left in the period, but the goal was waved off as the whistle had already blown.

Goodwin struck again early in the second, sending a slapshot from the blue line through traffic and into the top of the net to give the Giants the lead. Coventry responded well, testing Gravel with a sustained spell of pressure, including William Boysen hitting the post. JJ Piccinich intercepted a pass at the Giants’ blue line and broke away to beat Robson one-on-one at 28:47, extending Belfast’s lead to 3-1.

Carsen Twarynski was called for holding, and Jere Vertanen made the power play count with a wrist shot that found its way past Gravel to pull Coventry back to within one. Mike Lee almost restored the Giants’ two-goal advantage moments later, but his effort rang off the post. Belfast continued to apply pressure, forcing long defensive shifts from the Blaze, before Robson produced a huge double save, including a diving stop on the rebound.

“I think for the most part we had our form, we were just running into a lot of injuries that derailed what we were trying to do,” added Luciani. “We have a lot of guys coming back now and are looking good, taking that momentum into games one at a time.”

Vertanen struck again just 58 seconds into the third period, scoring his second power play goal of the night to level the game at 3-3. With 7:26 to play, a blocked shot fell kindly to Luciani, who fired past Gravel to give Coventry the lead for the first time. The Blaze held on from there to complete the comeback and secure the win.

“It was just a matter of time before they started going in,” said Luciani. “Playing with Constable and Hopkins, it’s been good. It’s nice to see us winning games.”