Steelers v Panthers

Match Report

Nottingham Panthers were beaten 5-1 by Sheffield Steelers in a pre-season game at iceSheffield.

Panthers were without Ollie Betteridge and Josh Tetlow who fly to Denmark with GB tomorrow for the Olympic Qualifiers, so Oli Endicott and Ben Brown remained in the line-up.

Logan Neilson - who missed Saturday's game with LQTR - returned to the line-up after being part of last week's GB camp in Cardiff.

Ryan Bednard started between the pipes with Luca Sheldon as back-up.

Steelers took an early lead through Marco Vallerand's neat finish into the top corner (1:33) and Daniel Leavens made it 2-0 when he redirected Kevin Tansey's pass past Bednard (6:42).

Mark Simpson burst through the Panthers defence for Sheffield's third (17:05) and at the other end, Nottingham's best chances of the period fell to Otto Nieminen, Logan Neilson and Didrik Henbrant.

Henbrant was denied on an early second-period breakaway and Hugo Roy went close, before Leavens made it 4-0 with a super strike from the left-circle (23:47).

Cooper Zech set-up Sam Herr who popped the water bottle from the right-circle to get Panthers on the board (33:49), but Steelers hit straight back as Patrick Watling converted at the backdoor (35:06).

Panthers grew into the game and had long spells of pressure in the third period, but Nieminen, Henbrant and Herr all had shots superbly saved by Matt Greenfield in the third period.

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