Game Preview - Play-off weekend.

This weekend see’s the Devils in action in their 10th consecutive Play-Off final weekend in the NIC in Nottingham. The Devils face stiff opposition from the league champions the Nottingham Panthers on their home Ice. Looking at the season the Devils have had a tough time against the Panthers so far having taken just two wins from the nine meetings.

I’d like to say that I’ve been asked to play down any recent wins the Panthers may or may not have had and not to mention any cups or other trophies they might have won as part of this preview, to make light of any positives in the Panthers squad and also to include the picture above of the Panthers staff with a large Ice Cream and this picture of Panthers Coach Corey Neilson dressed as a Clown…

We did take a bit of a look at the Panthers squad before the last time we met them and the verdict was that they were “largely injury free, spare import carrying and annoyingly consistently good”

With the criteria above in mind we look at last night’s Panthers game where they lost at home to the Sheffield Steelers !

A very even opening period saw both sides miss opportunities. Steelers had a couple of powerplay chances go without reward in the opening ten minutes and then Panthers also missed out with the man-advantage twice themselves. However, the deadlock was broken by the visiting Steerlers  at 17.38 when Lee Esders fired past Craig Kowalski for the only goal of the period.

Early in the second period Steelers pressed their advantage with a goal from Steven Goertzen at 23.13 but with Panthers wobbling it was Bruce Graham who came to the rescue and got his side on the board with a powerplay strike at 30.10.

The third period was a tense affair with little being given away by either side but time was not on Steelers side and a Panthers defence frustrated the Steelers stopping them from winning the game by an even greater margin . With no further goals the Panthers lost the game and the 7000 fans in attendance celebrated for some unknown reason.

Final Score Nottingham Panthers 1 - 2 Sheffield Steelers

Looking at the Panthers roster and the results the Devils have had so far this season against them  the keys to victory for the Devils are shutting down.

 
David Ling  - Who scored a whopping 11 Goals against the Devils so far this season. 

David Clarke – Who’s netted a respectable 5 Goals to date.

Also worth a mention here are Pat Galivan & Matthew Myers who’ve both scored 4 Goals against the Devils this season.

And beating the Panthers net minder Craig Kowalski  who comes into the Play offs with a 91.8% Save Percentage and a  2.07 Goals against average.

While the Devils have struggled against the Panthers this season the ones to watch against Kowalski are

Stuart MacRae – on 3 goals

Max Birbraer – on 4 goals

Chris Blight –  on 2 goals

Ben Davies – on 2 goals

We’ll be hearing from several of the Devils players and staff this week so keep checking back to see what the guys made of last weekend and their thoughts on the upcoming weekends games (hopefully).

This game will be a big ask for the Short benched Devils but as the Steelers showed on Tuesday the Panthers can be beaten the the NIC even if your coach isn’t allowed on the Bench. 

As always we’ll be running the  “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” Match Night (Mid-afternoon) Live service for these games, expect name calling and one eyed bias in epic proportions, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl if you'd like to help out by texting updates (we’d be happy to hear from you) or you can chip in with some comments on the night by contacting us at matchnightlive@gmail.com