Sheffield Steelers continued their win streak over Nottingham Panthers with a 4-2 win in an excellent game at a sold-out Motorpoint Arena.
The Panthers had the game’s first big chance, Kristoff Kontos getting an excellent chance in front off a pass from behind the net from Didrik Henbrant – Matt Greenfield coming up with the big save Greenfield.
Sheffield opened the scoring with 2:36 left in the first period – Ryan Bednard saved Brien Diffley’s shot, but dropped the puck straight on the stick of Finlay Ulrick to put the Steelers ahead.
Nottingham were back level early in period two. Good work from Jordan Kelsall to win the puck back saw him feed Ollie Betteridge who scored a contender for goal of the week with a snipe into the top corner of Greenfield’s net at 22:38. The hosts were the better side for the next 10 minutes or so but found it hard to create any Grade A chances in front of Greenfield. Not capitlalising on their momentum came back to bite as the Steelers hit the other way, a great drive to the net by Dominic Cormier opened up space for Marc-Olivier Vallerand to fire home with 3:07 left in period two. Bednard had, earlier in the period, made two excellent stops from close range to keep the score tied.
Tim Doherty levelled the game 8:37 into period three with a wonderful 1-on-0 finish to raise the noise levels in the Motorpoint Arena. However, again the Steelers responded to go back into the lead – an excellent shot from Sasha Guimond beating Bednard at 49:44.
There was late drama with two penalties on the Steelers in the closing stages, putting the Panthers 5-on-3 for some 45 seconds inside the final three minutes. Danny Stewart called a timeout but opted to keep Bednard in the net, however his side couldn’t find that final pass to create a shot on target and a game-tying opportunity
Some excellent penalty killing from Vallerand helped the Steelers kill time, and with Bednard out it fell to Mitchell Balmas to settle things with an empty-netter with 64 seconds remaining.
Photo: Panthers Images