Guildford Flames made it a three-point weekend with an excellent road win over league leaders Nottingham Panthers on Sunday afternoon.

“I thought it was a great 60 minutes from everyone,” said Flames forward Josh Waller, who scored twice. “We were unlucky to lose on Saturday night and tonight was a big bounce-back for us.”

The Flames stunned their hosts with three goals inside the opening 11 minutes. Mathieu Gosselin intercepted a breakout pass and skated through to beat Jason Grande just 76 seconds into the game. With 7:46 played, Ethan Strang fed Jake Coughler in the slot for a finish at the far post to make it 2–0, before Waller poked the puck home on 11 minutes. The Panthers called a timeout and replaced Grande with Kevin Carr.

“It wasn’t our best effort, no excuses, we just didn’t have it tonight,” admitted Panthers forward Bryan Lemos. “I think we laid an egg, but we can’t forget about what we’ve done so far this season. We’ll move on and keep firing.”

Lemos pulled the Panthers back into the game 5:05 into the second period, but Nottingham were beaten shorthanded 35 seconds later as Nick Seitz restored Guildford’s three-goal cushion. Waller then added his second of the night at 33:26 to put the Flames in complete control.

“It obviously feels nice to contribute,” added Waller. “Playing with Gosselin and Ully is great, they’re two excellent players.”

Matt Alfaro scored with just under five minutes to play to reduce the deficit to three, but a Cole Ully empty-net goal 3:50 from time sealed the Flames’ win.

“We spoke a lot about starting on time, we’ve struggled to do that in previous games. Tonight we were there from the start and it was huge for us,” concluded Waller.

Photo: Panthers Images