Panthers keep up pressure at the top
Photo: Panthers Images
Nottingham Panthers continued to keep up pressure on the teams at the top of the table with a 2-1 grind-out win over Glasgow Clan at the Motorpoint Arena. 6,706 fans saw them do it on Saturday night.
The Panthers led by a single goal after the opening period, although easily could have been more ahead. An excellent sauce pass from Sam Herr found Mitchell Fossier in front to beat Landon Bow with a top-shelf finish and open the scoring at 4:40. On almost the very next shift, Jason Grande made a good pad save to keep the Panthers ahead, although the Panthers came closest to scoring the next goal with a shot that flew off the crossbar.
With Clan on a man-advantage, Grande made two excellent low saves to deny Liam Finlay an equalizer as the Panthers stayed ahead at the buzzer.
Clan created more in period two, but the Panthers should have gone two up early in the period – Bow making an excellent last-ditch save on Didrik Henbrant to keep it a one-goal game. Reid Stefanson fired over when put through 1-on-0 as the Panthers threatened a second, and their 2-0 lead did come at 37:27 when Zsombor Garát’s shot from the point went through traffic to beat Bow.
Clan hit the iron themselves not long after, but were back into things at 33:03 - Robert Lachowicz intercepted a Cooper Zech pass with the Panthers on a powerplay and raced away the other way. Mitchell Fossier's slash stopped the shot but resulted in a penalty shot being awarded that was excellently dispatched by Cole Ully.
Period three saw Clan push, but without grading anything stand-out in front of Grande. A minor on Stefan gave them a powerplay with justo ver nine minutes to play, but Clan ended the man-advantage without a shot on target.
At the other end, Kontos and Herr combined off a faceoff with a shot going just wide, while Bow was pulled with 77 seconds to play with Clan's last throw of the dice. Nothing was doing, however, and Clan were defeated on Corey Neilson's first game back in Nottingham.
