Weekend Preview - Devils Vs Panthers

5th Jan 2012 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

This weekend see’s the Devils in action against the Nottingham Panthers first up on Saturday away on the big Ice of the NIC in Nottingham where the Devils lost 6-1 on their last outing; before the return leg on Sunday in the Big Blue tent in the bay. This will be the fifth meeting between the two clubs so far this season with the tally currently standing at 2 wins each.

I’d been preparing to write a fairly grim preview; if I’m honest; as given the Panthers form of late I’d honestly been expecting us to lose both games, but given the spectacular mess they made of their mid-week game this week… clearly anything is possible? Could the Panthers Mid-season Meltdown be here? 

Possibly it was the six games in 12 days over the festive period that finally took its toll on the Nottingham Panthers, or possibly it was the afore mentioned Mid-season melt down but  they went down in a somewhat surprising 6-3 defeat against Braehead Clan mid-week.

Prior to this game the Panthers had taken 30 points from a possible 32 on offer in their previous 16 league matches, maybe over confidence has crept in ? Or maybe it was just a bad night?

The Clan got off to a great start when Matt Haywood netted on the power play at early in the first before Brock McPherson put the Clan two up just minutes later. The Clan frustrated the Panthers attempts to claw back with net minder Jaakko Suomalainen proving unbeatable.

Early in the second McPherson and Nottingham's player coach Corey Neilson traded blows and on the resulting power play  Neilson saw his team go further behind as, Jimmy Jorgensen scored a third goal making it 3 -0 for the Clan.

Jorgenson scored a second power play goal at making in 4-0 a goal which lead Panthers net minder Craig Kowalski to ask to be pulled from the game, With back-up Dan Green in net the Panthers woes continued with further scoring from the clan coming from Jordan Krestanovich. With just 54 seconds of the period remaining, however, the Panthers at last found a way to goal as Robert Lachowicz netted.

The visitors pulled back another with a strike from Matthew Myers at early in the third. But the Clan struck back however with McPherson getting his second of the night and the home team's fourth power play goal at 50.12.

The final goal of the game came at 52.18 from David Clarke as he scored on a shorthanded Opportunity.

Nottingham coach Corey Neilson said after the game: "They have a top drawer unit and the guys took some soft penalties, it gave them power plays and they took every one-shot-opportunity they created.”

"We weren't smart off the puck; we weren't as clever as we have been in recent games. We've had a great run but we didn't win our fifty-fifty battles or our fifty-fifty races in this one. Greener took over in nets for us at four-nil even though it hadn't been Killer's ( Craig Kowalski’s) fault, and he made some great saves but you can't afford to give one of the best units in the league that many soft power play chances. We paid the price."

Since we last saw them play the Panthers have seen Scott Champagne leave them for pastures German to be replaced by Finnish forward Sami Rhyanen who has recently been given the green light of the rest of the season after his trial was deemed successful. 

They have also deepened the roster with the return of sniper Sean McAslan as an extra Import, who recently rejoined the squad and could well take to the ice this weekend.

The Panthers roster has real scoring depth with the  Jordan Fox ( 54 points);  who looks more comfortable on the big Ice in Nottingham than he does on our small pad in Cardiff; taking the lead for them with David-Alexandre Beauregard ( 49 points), David Clarke ( 41points) and Corey Neilson (39 points), Brandon Benedict  ( 37 points ) Matthew Meyers( 37 points) and Jeff Heerema (35 points)all providing potent scoring threats. 

Backed up with a solid defence of Brock Wilson, Danny Meyers and Guillaume Lepine and arguably the best Goalie in the league in Craig Kowalski  91.8% save percentage.

We know that the Panthers are a team that will challenge for the league this year, but in addition to this we know that they are a team that looks to go down the Middle; I’m sure it was G who called them a “showboat” team? We also know that they will punish on the Power play but that they can also be goaded into indiscipline and made to suffer.

No doubt the Panthers will be keen to get back on the title chase and take the four points this weekend and after their poor showing in Braehead will be keen to get a winning streak going.

Saturday night will be a big ask as the Devils seems to suffer on big Ice and some of the Panthers players like Jordan Fox for example excel there, Sunday the Devils have a good chance if they play clever and physical hockey. Of course if the Panthers are in Mid-Season Melt down then all this means nothing and it’s a 4 point weekend coming up.

The Devils will be without Brad Voth, after his Injury last weekend in Belfast and Mark Smith who will miss the rest of the season while the Panthers seem to be full strength with Jordan Fox not suffering from a hand injury he picked up over the Christmas Games and with a spare Import on the roster will clearly ice a full Complement of Imports. 

We will 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/