Steelers complete regular season sweep of Panthers

Photo: Dean Woolly

Sheffield Steelers completed a regular season sweep over Nottingham Panthers with their sixth win out of six league fixtures against their rivals, thanks to a 4-1 victory in front of almost 8,000 fans at the Utilita Arena. The Steelers have won nine straight against the Panthers this season.

The Steelers, in their white retro jerseys, got the perfect start to the game off some bad defense from the Panthers which allowed a 2-on-1 break that set Matt Petgrave through on Alex Dubeau. The Panthers goalie prevented the Steelers defenseman from scoring, but Scott Allen followed up to put the loose puck home from the crease. Matt Greenfield's glove save across his crease to deny David Levin was the closest the Panthers came to drawing level, but it was Dubeau who was the busier of the goalies as he produced a string of saves to keep the hosts at just one goal.

Period two was scoreless but not for the want of either side trying. The Steelers were dangerous on a couple of powerplays, while at the other end Jakub Ižacký hit the post with Greenfield screened. Greenfield again came up with an important save, this time with his blocker, off a Niko Lahtinen shot, with Alex Dubeau diving across his crease to stop a Robert Dowd slapshot. The visitors failed to capitalise on a 2-on-1 chance in the closing stages of the second as the score stayed unchanged.

An early third period goal made things more comfortable for the hosts. Kevin Schulze found the top corner of Dubeau's net 49 seconds into period three to double his team's advantage. Allen netted his second of the game off an excellent Petgrave pass 22 seconds later to make it 3-0. In a crazy opening to the period, Jeremy Welsh hit one back for the Panthers with 1:22 on the period clock.

Nottingham two took penalties in the final five minutes of the game giving Sheffield a 5-on-3 advantage, and Daniel Ciampini punished them with the game's final goal at 57:48.