Belfast Giants 6 Dundee Stars 2: Doug Christiansen was last night locked in negotiations with the two players he believes will add goals to the Belfast Giants’ chase for glory.

And the Giants coach is preparing himself for some late nights as he strives to secure players of sufficient quality to replace Benoit Doucet and Brock McBride.

The two players that Christiansen has already made initial offers to are based on North America’s west coast and the eight-hour time difference between their locations and Belfast isn’t helping his attempts to get them across the Atlantic.

The urgency with which Christiansen is working has been eased by the players that have stepped up to fill the void left by Doucet’s injury and McBride’s departure, with six different players scoring goals during Saturday night’s 6-2 win over the Dundee Stars at the Odyssey

“One of the players turned down our initial offer, but he’s a player who is loyal to his team and his team commitment is one of the reasons why I would like to bring him into our team,” said Christiansen.

“He is still an option for us and a player that I would like to sign, whether that is now or maybe in the summer we’ll just have to wait and see.

“We’re negotiating with the second player, but given their locations it’s not easy to do that and we have to wait until late in the day to talk.

“We have to get players in though and the sooner we have

something signed the better our chances of getting them to Belfast for our next game.”

Graeme Walton struck his fourth goal in seven games as the Giants comfortably saw off the challenge of Dundee.

He continued his recent purple patch by putting the Giants 3-0 up in the second period after first period strikes from Jeremy Rebeck and George Awada.

Although Jeff Hutchins pulled one back for the Stars the three-goal cushion was restored just over a minute later by Robert Dowd and third period goals from Darryl Lloyd and Jeff Mason came either side of John Dolan’s consolation effort.

“I’ve been looking for other players to step up and when Adam Keefe gets two assists, Graeme Walton, Jeremy Rebek and Jeff Mason are scoring goals, it’s good for our team.

“We knew we’d a problem when we had so many players out, but our team defence has always been good and it’s great when you see someone like Graeme Walton scoring four in seven games.”