Belfast Giants are forced to settle for a three point weekend

A crowd of 7,006 saw Dundee score the only goal of the opening period. Jackson Whistle made the save off Anthony Rinaldi’s shot, but the rebound fell kindly to James Phelan who scored with a deflection off the Giants’ goalie.

The Giants wasted a powerplay chance early in period two before then finding themselves two down.

Against the run of play, Anthony Rinaldi’s shot on net deflected in front off Xavier Pouliot to double the Stars’ lead.

Giants’s coach Adam Keefe called his timeout to fire his side up, and they responded with a goal 2.17 before the end of the period – Will Cullen’s pass across the face of Lucas Brine’s goal deflected home by the returning Greg Printz.

Brine was a thorn in the side of the Giants all night and pulled off a string of excellent saves in the third period especially to keep the Stars ahead.

The visitors’ resistance was eventually broken when a no-look pass from Ciaran Long found Ara Nazarian to tie the game with 3.28 to play.

Dundee were worthy of at least a point, but all of the momentum heading into overtime was with the Giants. Anthony Rinaldi could have won it in bonus hockey but for a late intervention, but it was Nazarian who scored the game winner 92 seconds into overtime to seal the Giants’ comeback.

Teemu Pulkkinen tipped Troy Lajeunesse’s one-timer past Tyler Beskorowany in overtime earn Fife Flyers a vital two points in the race for a playoff place.

Some 2,009 fans saw it happen at the Fife Ice Arena on Sunday evening.

Goals 10 minutes apart over the opening two periods put the Giants two ahead in Kirkcaldy, but they were pegged back by the middle of the second.

Josh Roach fed Ben Lake for an excellent finish at 10.58 to put the Giants ahead, followed at 20.57 by the same combination doubling the visitors’ lead 57 seconds into period two.

It was then the Troy Lajeunesse show as the Flyers got level.

He scored the Flyers’ first of the night form the slot, before sniping from the faceoff circle, 30 seconds apart to have the Flyers level by 31.09.

Daniel Tedesco took advantage of a Max Humitz Holding minor to put the Giants back ahead at 32.13.

Fife had multiple chances to level on the powerplay, but the Giants entered the final five minutes of regulation ahead. Eventually, a loose puck in front of Beskorowany was neatly tucked home by Vitalijs Pavlovs to level the game with only 4.43 to play.

Jacob Friend shot the puck out of bounds with 2.57 left, but some excellent saves from Beskorowany, especially off Colin Shirley, kept the game level.

Both sides took a point as overtime followed.

Tedesco had no complaints over his tripping penalty in overtime, and that led to the Flyers winner – patient passing allowed Kevin Wehrs to tee up Lajeunesse for the winner, with a tip in front from Pulkkinen winning it for the Flyers at 62.42.