It may have been pre-season, but it was anything but friendly on Friday night in Belfast when the Devils faced off against the Giants in front of 5,500+ people crammed into the SSE Arena.  Two fights in the first 40 minutes and plenty of big hits reminded everyone what they have been missing for the past four months.  Pete Russell was behind the bench for the first time as the Devils head coach along with his assistant coach Euan King. 

FIRST PERIOD – The Devils scored early when Chad Pietroniro found the back of the net at 5:12 with Ben Davies picking up the lone assist.  The Giants levelled at 11:23 when Elijah Barriga found Daniel Tedesco short-handed to fire past Ben Bowns and make it 1-1.  Bayley Harewood, who is up with the Devils for pre-season, scored his first in a Devils jersey at 13:07, beating Tyler Beskorowany to make it 2-1 with another assist from Davies.

SECOND PERIOD – The teams swapped goals in the second period, first Cole Sanford picked up a rebound and beat Beskorowany to give the Devils a 3-1 lead at 25:16 with Jamie Arniel picking up the only assist on the play.  The Giants pulled one back at 34:27 when Davey Phillips wired a shot through traffic to make it 3-2, which is how the period ended. 

THIRD PERIOD – The Devils held the one-goal lead for most of the period, but a late penalty call against Cody Donaghey in the dying minutes set up a 4-minute powerplay for the Giants to try and tie the game.  They did just that at 59:03 when Ara Nazarian banged in a rebound after Bowns made a big save on Greg Printz.  That meant the game was headed into overtime.

OT & SHOOTOUT – The Devils still had 30 seconds to kill on the Donaghey penalty to start the extra period but managed to keep the Giants at bay.  They followed it up with some good pressure, which led to a powerplay chance of their own, but the Devils failed to convert, and the clock ticked down with the score still tied 3-3. 

In overtime, both goalies were superb, stopping the first six shooters they each faced.  Eventually Marcus Crawford beat Beskorowany with a slick shot over his blocker, then Bowns made the final save to give the Devils a 4-3 shootout win. 

Photos courtesy of Philip Magowan, Press Eye