Game Preview - Devils Vs Panthers

1st Nov 2011 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

Saturday Night see’s Corey Neilson’s Nottingham Panthers making their way to the Big Blue Tent in Cardiff Bay, The Panthers are always a big game and this year  they look stronger than they have in a long time. This will be the third time the two teams have met this year with both teams taking wins on home Ice so far. Corey and his boys will be keen to win one away and take the much needed road points. 

The Panthers have been on a real roll of late winning eleven of their fifteen league games and six of their seven Challenge cup games so far this season.  It looks like Coach Corey has built a solid team and lost a lot of the problem players he’s had in previous seasons. 

Nottingham had just one game last weekend facing the Giants at home on Saturday night.  The first period saw the Panthers go two nil down with goals for Giants Mark Garside and a shorthanded goal from Craig Peacock late in the period.

The second period saw the Panthers pull one back at with a goal from Guillaume Lepine. However, just over a minute later Aaron Clark on his debut for the Giants scored on the power play taking the score to 3 - 1.
The hosts got the only goal of the third period as Jordan Fox found the net with only 8 seconds played. From there the Giants closed out the game with no further scoring.

Our man Chris was there for an “unbiased” view of the proceedings (although I suspect he was tickling Paw’s tummy whilst in his best Panthers Jersey) and said that the Panthers were woeful and that it was only Matt Myers who looked like he was trying, although it looks like Craig Kowalski helped keep them in it turning away all but 3 of the 35 shots the Giants put in.

Worryingly for the Panthers forward Matt Myers played the game injured having picked up a knock in Hull and despite being the best player on the Ice for the Panthers his injury became worse during the game. It’s now being reported that he will possibly needing an operation so he could be missing from some time. 
Coach Corey Neilson said: "This is a big blow. Matthew was a warrior to even take to the ice on Saturday and we're going to miss him. He's a key player for us."

Regardless of the loss of Matt Myers the Panthers roster is still a strong  one with the league’s top twenty scorers list  looking worryingly like a Panthers team sheet with no fewer than 6 players in the top 10 and another 2 rounding out the twenty.

The Panthers top scorers Scott Champagne ( 8 + 23 ), David Beauregard ( 16 + 9 ), David Clarke ( 15 + 8 ), Jordan Fox ( 9 + 13 ) and Brandon Benedict ( 7 + 15) form a potent strike force with good support from the likes of Matt Francis ( 6 +13),  Jeff Heerema newly returned from Injury and young  Brit Robert Lachowicz. The Panthers forward lines will be a tough prospect for the Devils.

The Panthers D is at full strength with the return of Matt Meyers after a long lay-off and Corey Neislon is currently the highest scoring D man in the league. Physically the Panthers D are a big bunch and Guy Lepine will look to stand up for his team mates where needed.

In Goal Panthers Craig Kowalski is solid as always and has the ability to swing games for the side, he is currently ranked 2nd in the league with a whopping 93% save percentage and four shut outs so far this year.

The Devils had a good weekend at home conceding just one goal in a six - one Demolition of the Coventry Blaze on Saturday before taking the Dundee Stars to overtime and Penalties on Sunday in a three - two road loss. For a more in depth view of the two games check out our weekend highlights here http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/news/weekend-round-up-29th-30th-october/

Last weekend saw standout performances coming from man of the match Jeff Pierce who scored 2 goals, one of which has been heralded by many as the goal of the season on Saturday night and from  Scott Matzka who scored 2 on Sunday night . The Devils also saw goals last weekend from Brad Voth, Stuart MaCrae and Kenton Smith.

The newly reworked forward lines seemed to be working nicely against the Blaze. With the 1st line of Jeff Pierce, Scott Dobben and Max Birbraer creating great chances in front of goal and putting the puck in the net, the second line of Brad Voth, Scott Matzka and Phil Hill putting in a solid contribution and four goals over the weekend and the third line of Sam Smith, Stuart MacRae and Ben Davies causing havoc and chipping in with a point Saturday.

Defensively the Devils are clearly missing Mark Smith who is out for the foreseeable future with Injury but we are seeing great defensive performances from the D unit regardless with Kenton Smith, Chris Frank, Mark Richardson , Josh Batch and Gerard Adams taking up the slack well.

Stevie Lyle continues to be a wall in goal for the Devils with 2 Shutouts so far this season and a save percentage of 92.6%. We will need to see a big game performance from Lyle on Saturday against the firepower of the Panthers.

One point that was highlighted from last weekend was indiscipline which luckily didn’t cost us against the Blaze but did cost us a goal against the Stars. The Devils will need to play smart hockey to avoid the Panthers power play unit.

This game has all the makings of an utterly epic game with the Panthers seemingly unstoppable until last weekend the Devils will need to make the best of their chances and really make use of the small Ice home advantage where the Panthers seemed to struggle on their first trip down at the start of the season.

It looks like we won't be running the “Childish and amazingly Biased”  Match Night Live service for this game, at the usual location of www.theinferno.co.uk/mnl as we at the moment have no one to host. If we do find someone the Game thread will be updated. If we can run and  you'd like to help out or chip in with some comments on the night please contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com. You can also follow on Twitter for updates on @InfernoMNL

And don’t forget if you’re looking for somewhere to have a pint and a bite to eat before the game or a few beers afterwards the Pilot in Penarth is a short trip away and will also be open afterwards for post-match drinks, directions to the pub can be found here - http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/where-to-eatdrink/