Panthers need to pick themselves up and find a bit of form to make sure the ever-reliable, but possibly rather jaded, home fans have someone to support come 5 April
illustration: Adam Poole
Nottingham Panthers have chosen the business end of the season to crash and burn in spectacular fashion. In the space of four days, they have been ruled out as genuine contenders to win the Elite League and been ousted from the Challenge Cup, which they have won for the last five years straight. To rub salt into the wounds, the latter defeat was at the hands of arch-enemies Sheffield Steelers at the National Ice Centre in front of an expectant crowd of 5,000 home fans.
The Panthers went into the second leg of the semi-final as favourites to progress, having started with a 3-1 lead. On top of that, the deciding game was on home ice and, due to injuries, Sheffield had to draft in an inexperienced net-minder from the lower EPL league, 20-year old Sam Gospel.
Gospel has previously played as a back-up for Panthers – who have three net-minders on the books at the moment with Craig Kowalski, Mattias Modig and Dan Green all available to strap on the pads (Kowalski has become a father for the second time, rushing off from a game in Sheffield to join his wife) – but the youngster only had four minutes of Elite League experience to his name before a big semi-final night in a local derby.
Kowalski: out-netminded [image: Sally Utton]
So far this season, it has been pretty close between Sheffield and Nottingham, and before the latest game Panthers had won six games to Steelers’ four. The Steelers came out strong and overturned the two-goal deficit only six minutes into the first period, before Panthers had even taken a single shot on goal. It was an exciting, feisty, physical game and the home team finally woke up in the second period, when it was our turn to score three goals in quick succession. But Steelers played desperate, wanted it more in the third period, and ultimately fought back again to level it at 7-7 and take it to overtime and penalty shots.
While Sheffield have stronger scorers on their team, Panthers had the far more experienced net-minder, yet Nottingham-born Gospel played a blinder and kept all the penalty shots from the Panthers out, to give Sheffield a ticket to the final on Sunday 8 March. Their opponents in a stand-alone final to be played at the Motorpoint Arena in Sheffield will be Cardiff , who we would like to wish all the luck imaginable to defeat Steelers. Anyone but Sheffield...
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The League games have not gone much better for the Panthers either, with five defeats on the bounce, effectively taking us out of the title race. During the whole of February, we have had only two wins from ten games. In the last few weeks there have been five teams at the top of the table who have been jostling for position, but Nottingham and Belfast’s string of losses has now left only Braehead Clan, Cardiff Devils and Sheffield Steelers in the running. So, we are left with trying to finish in as high a position in the League table to give us a good seeding and a decent shot of progressing through a two-leg quarter final to make the play-off finals weekend in April, which Panthers did not manage to do last season.
Lachowicz: one of a group of forwards short on goals this campaign [image: Sally Utton]
One of the Panthers’ most telling problems this season has been the inability to score enough goals. In the top 20 Elite League scorers, the one and only Nottingham player, Chris Lawrence, appears in seventeenth position. Ex-Panther Paul Adey recently said that a team needs to be able to score an average of at least three goals per game to stand a chance of winning the league. Our average over the last nine games (excluding the latest Challenge Cup game) is two goals.
Injuries are a perennial factor and in the last month Chris Higgins returned to fitness but has returned to the injury list again after getting a stick to the face in Sheffield. Cody Wild and Steve Lee are also still on the longer-term injury list with no sign of returning after both got hits to the head in different games and suffered concussion, Ryan O'Marra from Coventry picking up a four-game ban for his horrible check on Lee [see clip, below]. Captain David Clarke is out for the rest of the season for a shoulder operation. Even Ollie Betteridge, who plays mainly in the lower EPL League and occasionally for Panthers, has a broken kneecap, sustained in a game in Swindon.
Ex-Panther Nathan Robinson – who came to Nottingham for the Champions Hockey League (CHL) but left shortly afterwards, citing “unfinished business” in the German DEL league while claiming that skilled players in the UK were being targeted for injury – has made a surprise return to EHL, joining Belfast Giants. Despite his return, the Giants have also fallen by the wayside in the league standings and are already out of the Challenge Cup, leaving only the play-offs for them to aim at.
Defenceman Colby Cohen, who was also in Nottingham during pre-season for the CHL, has returned to provide some all-important cover on defence. Cohen went back to America and then to Slovakia after his brief stint in the Midlands. The 25-year-old played in the NHL previously and is a former USA junior international. He certainly made his presence felt in a game against Belfast on the opening day of February, picking up a ban for his troubles when, while prone on the ice, he was surrounded by Belfast players and kicked out to defend himself, at which point he was speared several times by Cody Brookwell whilst being held down by Adam Keefe, the Belfast captain.
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Cohen is a big unit, and having a physically large team certainly makes a big difference. The teams with sizeable players this season, the teams therefore able to boss the ice, are Cardiff Devils and the Braehead Clan, with their penalty minute totals being the highest of all teams so far (1146 and 1147 minutes each). Despite this, it is perhaps also no coincidence that their league positions are second and first respectively.
Farmer (right) has got your back [image: Emma Sleight @PanthersOTR]
The Panthers do not have a tough guy this season, probably a deliberate move after Brent Henley’s heavy-handed tactics last season. However, a player that has stepped up his game all round, including taking unexpected responsibility for defending his team-mates, is Robert Farmer. He was the first to defend Steve Lee after he took the hit to the head from O’Marra and was also there for Colby Cohen in the spearing incident above. Farmer is clearly building a reputation, and was even accused of leaving the bench to join a fight to protect Cohen and ejected from a game, but this charge was proven to be incorrect and eventually withdrawn. Farmer does a great job of irritating other teams and causing them to take unnecessary penalties – even former NHL tough guys like Kevin Westgarth of the Belfast Giants. Westgarth has previously broken another player’s jaw with one punch, but that did not stop Farmer exchanging verbal pleasantries with him (albeit from the relative safety of separate penalty boxes).
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The Champions Hockey League was won by Lulea Hockey of Sweden who, out of 44 teams starting the tournament, were in the same initial group as Nottingham (if only…). The final was an all-Swedish affair against Frölunda HC, Lulea eventually winning 4-2 after they pulled off a dramatic comeback in the final period.
The Elite League will have two places in next season's blue riband European ice hockey competition, with the winners and runners-up qualifying for the CHL, while the play off winners will enter the Continental Cup. The 2015-16 CHL draw is likely to be held in May in Prague during the IIHF World Championship, and each team's four group matches will take place between Thursday 20 August and Sunday 6 September.
things get a little heated at Coventry [image: Sally Utton]
The play-off finals weekend will take place on Saturday 4 and Sunday 5 April at the National Ice Centre and promises to be a fantastic showcase of British ice hockey, with teams and fans coming to Nottingham from all over the country. Sister-club Braehead Clan, with the same owner as the Panthers, were the first team to secure qualification to the quarter-finals this year, on top of which they look poised to win the Elite League, which will secure an historic maiden league title for a Scottish team.
The final league standings will decide the seedings for the play-off quarter finals, while only the four winners from those ties will actually make the finals weekend. With Robert Farmer trying to rally the troops, Nottingham need to pick themselves up and find a bit of form to make sure the ever-reliable, but possibly rather jaded, home fans have someone to support at the NIC come 5 April.
Follow Sally on Twitter: @sautton22
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