Giants: Legit Contenders?

Steve Thornton is out to prove that the Belfast Giants are true title contenders in tonight’s showdown with the league leading Sheffield Steelers.

The Giants, who trail the Steelers by six points with a game in hand, still have four more matches against Sheffield, beginning at the Odyssey Arena tonight.

Belfast were shutout 5-0 when the teams last met and after dropping more points in December Thornton knows that the Giants cannot afford to slip further behind.

“We’re coming through a tough spell and this is a game to show if we’re a legit title contender,” Thornton said in an interview with skysports.com.

“This is the biggest game of the year for us. A victory in this game puts us right back in contention for the league title after a few people had written us off when we went through a bad spell.

“We’ve dropped a little bit in the standings but the way we’re looking at it is that it’s still in our hands. We’ve still got a lot of games against the other contenders left.”

Thornton, who returns to duty tonight after serving a two-match ban for tripping Hull netminder Curtis Cruickshank, is preparing to face a Sheffield team that has only lost three games in regulation all season.

The Giants have been boosted by the recent return of star forward Paul Deniset, who scored the overtime winner against the Stingrays on Sunday and leads the team with 45 points.

“Sheffield don’t seem to be dropping a lot of points against other teams so if we’re going to catch them we can’t rely on others,” Thornton added.

“There’s a lot of time left, but home games are really important and with Deniset and myself back we’ve only got Andrew Martin missing from the line-up and we like our chances.”

Martin has only iced in 19 games this season and has been sidelined with a leg injury for over a month. The Canadian forward attempted a comeback in mid-December, but had not fully recovered and has been out since.

“Andrew’s had an MRI and the results came back similar to what we expected,” Thornton said.

“He’s got a high ankle sprain, a little bit of ligament damage and some swelling in the joint, which is a tough hockey injury.

“Hockey players would almost prefer to have a break than that. It’s one of those things that if you come back too quickly from it you can re-injure yourself.”