First of all, well played Panthers for doing to us what we did to them in our place. Expect this will be the nature of the season between these two teams.
Good to see the "we need more toughness" brigade back out, they must have been getting frustrated with all that winning malarkey.
It's true we're not as physical as Panthers, but they're all about 8 foot tall. We'd have to change our roster to compete on that front, and do you want to get rid of Martin, Mo, Benti, etc? For me we lost the game psychologically more than physically. We always knew they'd come out fast in the 3rd when 2-0 down. We were rocking but pulled ourselves back into it - we built some offense, which led to the PP, which led to the goal. If there was a problem it was that the adage about being vulnerable when you score came to haunt us. Having survived the early onslaught and pulled it back to a 2 goal lead, there was a sense of relief. We needed to play smart and ugly hockey for 4-5 minutes just to frustrate them - tie it up on the boards, dump and chase, whatever. When they got one back immediately the confidence and strength drained from the Devils and there was only one winner from there. This is not a criticism of the players, it's just the way it goes, and I expect Lord will be saying similar. They'll learn from that, which is something Lord excels at.
Can't understand some of the criticisms on here: Batch is having a really good season, I think he got 2nd assist on first two goals, and was a solid unit in D; Bowns looked confident and assured all night until that closing period which was symptomatic of the whole team really; Haddad was brilliant, particularly in the first period, working hard and driving forward.
Excellent game, going to be ding dong between these two all season.