Elite League: Manchester Storm dent Belfast Giants' title hopes

The Belfast Giants suffered a setback to their Elite League title chances as the Manchester Storm completed a two-game sweep at the SSE Arena with a 5-4 victory.

It's not often that the Belfast Giants go pointless from two home games over a weekend but following the 5-2 reversal on Saturday this was the first time since February 2017 that had happened.

Adam Keefe's men are fifth in the Elite League table, 11 points behind leaders Guildford Flames but with two games in hand.

The Giants start was good and they skated to an early 2-0 lead when David Goodwin latched on to Mark Cooper's pass and fired the puck past Hayden Lavigne.

Minutes later, the Storm netminder couldn't corral a lose puck in front of his own net and Scott Conway was on hand to double the home team's advantage.

At the other end Manchester had chances and finally took one when a blueline shot was saved by Peyton Jones but he had no help from his defence to clear the puck and Stephen Johnson was able to gobble up the rebound under no pressure.

The visitors had the better of the exchanges in the second period and equalised when Matt Foley mishandled the puck at the Storm blueline and it led to breakaway for Tyson Fawcett who beat Jones easily.

A little bit of good fortune allowed the Giants to retake the lead when an attempted clearance from the side of the Storm net led to a broken stick, and the puck was collected by Darik Angeli who found Ben Lake and his finish was close range was sublime as he lifted the puck high into the net over the shoulder of Lavigne.

But the game was soon tied at 3-3 heading into the final period when Jake Bricknell redirected a shot a shot from Dallas Ehrhardt past Jones.

Twenty-four seconds into the third period and the Storm were in front for the first time when Jesper Ohrvall was on hand to tap in a cross-ice pass as the Giants suffered another defensive breakdown.

There was little pushback from the Giants and coach Adam Keefe got more and more animated on the bench as the frustration grew.

When Cameron Critchlow added to the Storm lead with seven minutes remaining the Giants fans began to voice their disapproval as well.

Conway gave the Giants some hope by scoring his second off the back of Lavigne which led to a frantic last three minutes but no equaliser would arrive.

The Giants will need to regroup quickly with a trip to Cardiff next on the schedule on Saturday night.