The defending champion Belfast Giants have reached their second-straight EURO League Cup Finals after stomping through the Northern Conference field with ease.

The first two playoff series had Belfast remaining on the British Isles, where they won 4 straight games against Edinburgh and then 4 straight against London.  The Capitals gave Belfast one close game, a 5-4 Giants win in Scotland, but that was it. The second round series bordered on abuse. Belfast beat London 5-1, 6-0, 5-2 and 6-0 for an overall 22-3 score.

Moving onto the continent, Belfast faced another young, speedy team in the Minsk Hussars, but what looked like it could be a close, high-scoring series ended up lopsided, with Belfast winning in 5 games. The Giants lone playoff loss was a resounding one in Minsk, as the Hussars outshot them 51-21 en route to a 5-2 conquest in Game 3 of the series. The momentum was wrested back by Belfast when they scored two third-period goals in Game 4 to pull out a 4-3 win.

Belfast will face the Southern Conference champion – either Berlin or Paris.

The Giants’ top line of Sidney Crosby, Alexander Ovechkin and James Neal has flown through the playoffs at warp speed. In 13 games, Neal has 28 points, Crosby has 27 and Ovechkin has 22. Minsk’s Nicklas Backstrom led all scorers through three rounds with 31 points. Four Giant defensemen have also contributed mightily to Belfast’s success so far. P.K. Subban, Justin Faulk, Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Victor Hedman all have hit, blocked shots and scored goals in the playoffs, playing between 18 and 24 minutes per game. Subban and Faulk are the top two plus-minus players on the team in these playoffs.

The Giants’ play has either helped goalie Jonathan Quick achieve great stats … or vice versa. Quick has a league-leading 1.92 goals against average in the playoffs to go with a league-best save percentage of 93.3.