Nottingham Panthers raced into a four-goal lead against Guildford Flames, but in the end held on to win by the odd goal in 11 at the Motorpoint Arena.
“We started really well and played a lot of good hockey,” began Chase Pearson, who hit a hat trick for the Panthers. “The second and third were not so good, obviously. We took our foot off the gas a bit and they capitalised on that. We have to play a full 60 if we want to compete in this league.”
Danny Stewart couldn’t have scripted a better opening period for Nottingham Panthers, who stormed into a four-goal lead over Guildford Flames – scoring all four inside a little over 11 minutes.
Cooper Zech opened the scoring at 8:13, finishing off a Brendan Harris feed. Somewhat against the run of play, Chase Pearson dangled in front of Taz Burman and tucked the puck home for 2–0. A pinpoint stretch pass from David Noël then sent Mitch Fossier through on Burman, and he out-waited the Flames goalie with a silky deke to make it three. Pearson struck again with 11 seconds left in the period to complete a blistering spell of four goals in just 11 minutes and 36 seconds.
“You can’t go down like that in the first period,” conceded Flames defenceman Charlie Curti. “You have to be ready to go, and we clearly weren’t. Our details weren’t there and it took us a period to wake up. This is too good of a league to dig yourselves a hole like that.”
Justin Fazio replaced Burman for period two, and whatever Paul Dixon said during the break had the desired effect. Lewis Hook pounced on a loose puck just past the 22-minute mark to get the Flames on the board, and 71 seconds later Cole Ully buried a rebound to cut the deficit to 4–2. The visitors continued to have the better of the period, but were punished late: with 19 seconds left and after sustained Flames pressure, Jamal Watson gave the puck away, allowing the Panthers to break 2-on-1. Ollie Betteridge set up Fossier to restore Nottingham’s three-goal cushion.
“Any goal you get is huge for a team, and I try to contribute where I can. I was pretty fortunate tonight, the pucks went in!” joked Pearson.
Guildford again started quickly in the third and were back within two when Jake Coughler scored at 41:12. Pearson completed his hat trick at 43:21 to put the Panthers three ahead once more, but Mathieu Gosselin responded two minutes later and Josh Waller struck on the powerplay at 55:30 to make it a one-goal game.
“We were pretty proud of how we came back. You can take solace in that but it’s disappointing knowing how good we can be. It’s one of those things that we have to learn. The comforting thing is we know it’s within us; it’s just disappointing when you don’t put it together,” added Curti. “We’re fighting through this slump at the moment. We’ll be better for it in the end, but we have to keep working hard and push through it.”
The Panthers had to kill off a late penalty after Ross Armour was called for hooking, and while Fazio was pulled with 72 seconds remaining the Flames’ final push was halted when Ully took a tripping penalty with 19 seconds left.
“Second and third periods we have a lot of room for improvement, but we ended up getting it done. We turned the jets on in the first, so that energy is something we need to take into tomorrow,” concluded Pearson.
Photo: Panthers Images
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