Panthers secure four-point home weekend

Photo: Panthers Images

The Nottingham Panthers secured a four-point weekend thanks to a last-second equaliser and shootout win against the Manchester Storm in the Premier Sports Challenge Cup. The result means that the Storm are eliminated from this year's competition.

Will Kerlin and James Downie started in nets for the early Sunday encounter.

Jeremy Welsh scored the lone goal of the opening period when he went through on James Downie and made no mistake with the finish at 10:32 - the goal coming after the Storm had had their own chances to open the scoring on the previous play.

When Matt Lane made it 2-0 46 seconds into the second it looked as if the Storm would be out of the cup with a game to spare. However, Adam Brady got them on the board when he finished off Jared Vanwormer's direct faceoff feed, and 90 seconds later the Storm were level through Dallas Ehrhardt's softly struck shot from the top of the circle on the powerplay.

Storm completed their turnaround with their third goal in under as many minutes thanks to Frankie Melton, and led 3-2 with only 30:24 of the period played.

Welsh's cross-crease pass bounced in off Robbie Baillargeon to bring the Panthers level three minutes later, but at 36:12 Brady and Ehradt played a nice give-and-go with the former slotting home to put Storm back ahead.

Storm looked to have done enough to keep themselves alive in the cup, but with just six seconds left on the clock Baillargeon bundled the puck over the line from close range to tie things up again. The goal was confirmed after video review.

Overtime produced no winner, and so the game went to penalty shots. Kerlin was the Panthers' hero saving four out of five shots and didn't hide his excitement at winning the game for his team! Mathieu Tousignant and Christophe Boivin were on target for the Panthers, while Adam Brady had the Storm's only goal in the shootout.

Gallery