Cardiff v Nottingham Panthers - Saturday 14th Dec

12th Dec 2013 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Saturday night see’s the Devils in action in their only game of the weekend against the Nottingham Panthers in Cardiff Bay’s big blue tent. This will be the 4th time we’ve seen the Panthers this season with the series currently running at 2-1 in favour of the Panthers. Last season saw the Devils win just two of the 10 games they played against the Panthers so a win this Saturday could see this years the team match last year’s record. 

For a great insight into the Panthers form over the last month, recent departures after the European Cup and details of yet more new arrivals we’d suggest checking out the rather excellent Left Lion article here http://www.leftlion.co.uk/articles.cfm/title/left-panther--december/id/6351

After their busy spell with European Cup games and a busy schedule on their return the Panthers had a fairly quiet weekend last weekend with just the one game last Friday against the Braehead Clan where a tremendous game of end to end hockey ended with Panthers grabbing the extra point and breaking home hearts when Matt Francis fired in an overtime winner with just 3 seconds of the extra five minutes remaining.

Panthers now move into third in the standings, just a point behind Clan as both clubs chase down leaders Belfast.
The opening session saw frantic action at both ends but it was Panthers who were more clinical in front of goal and they scored twice late on to seemingly take control. Ex Clan star Robert Farmer shot his new side ahead on the powerplay at 14.44 and then at 17.11 it was Leigh Salters on hand to shoot the visitors 2-0 ahead.

The second period saw Clan take the game to their opponents and the home crowd were on their feet at 25.13 when Ash Goldie marked his return from injury by netting on the powerplay. Momentum had changed and again on the powerplay Joe Cullen leveled for the hosts at 29.36. The comeback was complete when at 33.22 Lee Esders beat Neil Conway with a fine shot and Clan led 3-2. However, Panthers regrouped and with only 14 seconds of the period remaining Petr Kalus tied it up.

Into the third period and this unpredictable game went in Panthers favour again when Chris Capraro fired home at 44.43 on the powerplay but special teams were dominating at both ends and with their third powerplay strike of the night Goldie scored Clan’s fourth at 49.20.

Both sides had further opportunities after that but neither could settle it in regulation so the game went to overtime where Clan had the better of it but it was Panthers who broke away to see Francis fire home with 3 seconds remaining to claim the extra point.

Final Score Braehead Clan 4 – 5 Nottingham Panthers (After Overtime)

The ones to watch for Nottingham so far this season have been –

Matt Francis on 14 Goals and 21 Assists

Leigh Salters on 13 Goals and 18 Assists

David Clarke on 16 Goals and 11 Assists

Robert Lachowicz on 9 Goals and 18 Assists

Score line wise it’s been Chris Capraro who’s done the damage against the Devils so far this season with 2 Goals against the Devils to date.

On the Injury front the Panthers look like they will be without Craig Kowalski, who has been replaced in the short term with Back up import net minder Neil Conway,  and Brent Henley who both have Ankle Injuries.

Speaking in the Nottingham Post today Panthers Coach Corey Neilson had this to say of his teams form of late -

"This year we have looked mediocre at times, we really have. I think a lot of that at times has been down to execution, but also it has much to do with the way teams have started to cope with what we have done physically."

"There are certainly things in our game that we need to change.”

"Our penalty killing is horrendous. But it just comes down to guys being on the ice way too much. (Chris) Murray and (Jon) Weaver just play a chunk of minutes, and among the forwards (Matt) Francis, (Rob) Lachowicz, (Matt) Ryan, (Petr) Kalus basically absorb too many minutes especially with them playing so offensively too.”

"It's tough to do that every night, how we've typically played, and it's been a very trying time physically for them. So we're trying to adjust certain things to put that right."

Panthers penalty-killing on the road is the worst in the league and it is only the potency of their league-best powerplay, both at home and away, that has masked the problem.

Neilson added: "It's not been good obviously but statistics can be misleading. Yes we do take a lot of penalties, unfortunately more than we should.”

"But there have been a lot of five-on-threes on the road and especially one game I remember in Fife, we had three five-on-three goals against.”

"On top of our injury problems and suspensions and the amount of minutes some guys are having to play, it all goes together.”

"But statistics can be misleading and don't always tell the full story."

For the Devils the top performers against the Panthers have been Max Birbraer and Matthew Myers both of whom have netted 3 goals. 

Injury wise the Devils will more than likely be without starting net minder Dan LaCosta but have strengthened the roster with addition of Finnish defenceman Joonas Liimatainen who arrived this week.

We chatted about this game and you can check out our webcast of that on Inferno TV here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alT5_PS_Dok We get some insight into the preparation for this game that the team are undertaking from Devils defenceman Brad Plumton who was on the panel for this week’s show. 

We will be running the “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” “ Pantomime Script” that is our Match Night Live service for this game, expect name calling, slurs and one eyed bias in epic proportions, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl

We’ll be updating you live from the Inferno “News desk” at the rink thanks to the great guys at Analysis Technologies. If you’d like to chip in with a comment or make a score prediction you can contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com.

Also if you can't make it down and you don't want to miss any of the action and reading the game isn’t enough you can get the game on Devils live TV here  http://www.cardiffdevils.com/ ( Make sure your Apple product is updated and use Firefox we’d suggest) for a jolly reasonable £8.