Awada Nets Hat-Trick As Giants Extinguish Blaze

Posted on Sunday, October 9th, 2011 at 11:07 pm

The Stena Line Belfast Giants put in an impressive performance on Sunday Night in Coventry to defeat the Blaze by a scoreline of 5-2 to stay on top of the Elite League standings. The star of the night was George Awada, who scored his first, second and third goals of the season for the hat-trick in only his sixth game back as a Giant after a year out of professional hockey last season.

It only took 1 minute and 20 seconds for the Giants to get on the board when Awada scored his first of the night with assists going to Robert Dowd and Jeff Mason. Two minutes later, the visitors doubled their lead courtesy of Ryan Crane with assists going to Awada and Dowd. The Giants made it 3-0 before the end of the period with a powerplay goal coming off the stick of Mark Garside with just over 30 seconds remaining in the opening frame.

The second period started the same way as the first with Awada once again scoring early, this time less than a minute in, to make it 4-0 to the Giants with Tom Dignard and Benoit Doucet picking up the assists. The Blaze finally got on the board at the 2:19 mark of the second period when Matic Kralj scored to make it 4-1. The Blaze took advantage on the powerplay with Tom Dignard in the box for high-sticking to make it 4-2 with the strike coming from Kralj again for his second of the game. The momentum seemed to momentarily be shifting in favour of the Blaze, but any hopes of a comeback were squashed when Awada scored his third of the game with 1 minute and 45 seconds remaining in the second period on a wraparound that beat Peter Hirsch in net for the Blaze to make it 5-2.

The Giants and Blaze exchanged powerplay chances in the third period, but neither team could find the net again. The Giants tightened up defensively giving up a mere 8 shots in the final period compared to 14 in the first and 16 in the second. Murphy stood tall as the clock ticked away for the final buzzer leaving the Giants in sole possession of first place in the Elite League standings and a massive 4 point road weekend after Saturday Night’s win in Hull.