Blaze stay fourth with home win
Photo: Scott Wiggins
Coventry Blaze made Danny Stewart's second visit back to the Skydome an unhappy one as they beat his Nottingham Panthers side 4-3 on Sunday night, staying fourth in the table. 2,187 fans saw them to victory at the Skydome.
"It's such a cliche, but I think we got back to fundamentals this week," said Michael Regush who scored the home side's third goal on the night. "We had a good week in practice, a total team reset, and we stuck to our game plan."
Nick Seitz gave the home side the lead inside three minutes. Having originally passed to Alessio Luciani on a 2-on-1 that was stopped by Ryan Bednard, the puck worked its way back to Seitz to finish backhanded on the spin at 2:23.
Matt Alfaro levelled shorthanded at 5:11 at the second attempt after whiffing on his original shot.
David Clements' shot from the points beat Bednard glove side to make it 2-1 at 12:30, a goal that the Panthers' goalie would probably have wanted back.
An excellent opening period for the hosts was completed by Michael Regush, skating almost coast to coast and shooting through a crowd on players to make it 3-1 at 16:56.
"I think, for us, sometimes when we don't get results our fans can see that we've worked very hard. So it's nice when it does come through, but I never question our team's work-rate. When you get two results like this against good teams you can see that the work-rate and execution are going hand in hand" added Regush.
Panthers captain Sam Herr pulled his team back to one behind when he finished off an Alfaro pass 2:44 into period two, but the crucial next goal went the way of the Blaze - Brandon Alderson one-timing through Bednard's five-hole at 32:53.
Ollie Betteridge made the final moments interesting when he scored at 58:11, but the Panthers were unable to tie the game on 98 seconds with the extra skater and went down to their second 4-3 loss of the weekend.
"Our fans are awesome! I can't say enough good things about them, they definitely get the guys into it. In the third, when you're feeling a little tired, the energy was awesome and helped us see it out" concluded Regush.
