Belfast Giants beaten by late four-goal outburst by Ilves

Bo Hanson celebrates his goal for the Belfast Giants

A quick-fire four-goal salvo from Ilves Tampere in the last 10 minutes of the game saw the Finnish side overcome the Belfast Giants 7-4 in their Champions League encounter at the SSE Arena.

The Giants had shown great resilience to come from behind on three occasions to take a 4-3 lead but for the second time in three days they couldn’t hold on and suffered a second CHL defeat after losing to KalPa 3-2 on Thursday.

“We took lead there in the third period and I don't know, maybe some of us thought that it was gonna be easy the rest of the way,” explained Giants defenceman Bo Hanson.

“But that's a good lesson for us. Especially later on in the season when hopefully we're playing with leads a lot in this building.

“You can't give them any hope and we give them a little bit too much there.

“Maybe fatigue was a part of it, but they’re a really good hockey team, one of best in Finland and you can’t switch off for a second.”

Ilves dominated the first period and outshot the Giants 12-3 but despite how well they played they only had a goal from Timi Teuho-Markkola at 3:03 to show for their efforts.

As they did in the opening defeat to KalPa on Thursday, the home side gathered themselves and started the second period well and they were rewarded with the equalising goal at 28:36.

Ryan Smith’s blast from the right circle was saved but the rebound fell for Nicolas Guay who dispatched the puck into the unguarded net.

With a foothold in the game, what the Giants didn’t need was to concede on the very next shift.

It took 21 seconds for Ilves to capitalise on a lack of concentration by the Giants and an unfortunate collision between netminder Jackson Whistle and team mate Marcus Eriksson that allowed Jens Lööke to restore the visitors' lead.

The Giants weren’t deterred and after winning a number of one-on-one battles a loose puck was collected by JJ Piccinich. His shot hit David Goodwin in front of the Ilves net and the Giants captain was able to corral the puck and score at 35:40.

A late slashing call on Hanson however would prove crucial as Lukas Svejkovsky made it a 3-2 game at the end of 40 minutes.

Coach Adam Keefe reunited Piccinich with Scott Conway and Goodwin to start the third period and it paid dividends straight away as the trio combined to set up Goodwin for his second of the game.

The Giants had the momentum and 37 seconds later the crowd of 6,200 were on their feet when Hanson wound up and fired the puck home to put his side ahead for the first time.

It was false hope as the classy Finnish outfit, stunned at being behind, stepped up a gear and scored four times in the space of 4:45 with goals from Jarkko Parikka, Simon Johansson, Matic and Svejkovsky.

Giants David Goodwin celebrates after scoring one of his two goals

“It's one of the best leagues in Europe and it's like that for a reason. All those guys can skate, all those guys can make plays,” added Hanson.

”They're a fast team and they have a ton of skill throughout the line-up. It’s another level.

“It's unfortunate the way it ended but I loved our fight for the majority of that game.

“Like I said, we probably took our foot off the gas a little too soon there but there's a lot of positives you can learn from.

“We've got a great group in there and we're gonna get better. We're gonna compete.”

The Giants face a daunting trip to Switzerland next week to take on Lausanne and Zug needing to win for the first time away from home in the CHL to keep any realistic hopes of making the knockout stages.