Panthers and Storm kick off final week of round-robin games

Photo: Panthers Images

Game 17 of 24 in the round-robin stage of the 2021 ELite Series sees the Nottingham Panthers take on the Manchester Storm at 7pm this Monday evening.

After a slow start to the competition, the Panthers picked things up last week and collected five points out of the six on offer. While the team remain last in the standings, they are only three points off first - and in a week where each team is playing four games, that's the type of gap that can easily be made up by Tim Wallace and his men.

The Panthers' turnaround in fortunes started against the Storm with an overtime win in Game 12. Conversely for Manchester, that defeat was the start of a run of two losses, however they bounced back with a bang by beating leaders Sheffield on Sunday afternoon to stay just a point behind the leaders.

With a powerplay of 25%, Ryan Finnerty's Storm side have one of the best special teams in the tournament going forward, at the back however their kill of 64.29% is the tournament's lowest by far. The Panthers have the worst powerplay efficiency overall at 17.24%, but the kill of 79.41% is the second-best overall to date.

Team news
Ben Bowns and Jackson Whistle have split duties thus far and with a four-game week ahead of them, the Panthers are very likely to have both goalies share the net. Whistle started last week's win over the Storm if Wallace is looking for omens.

Sean Bonar saved 36 shots in the victory over Sheffield, but has played seven of Manchester's eight games so far. Sam Gospel stood in against Coventry, and with four games this week is likely to get at least one more start in the next seven days.