"Having earned the small matter of 67 penalty minutes from a single incident, Grimaldi was thrown out of the game."
Panthers [illustration: Adam Poole]
This season’s Nottingham Panthers team continues to be a mystery to many. The last four weeks has seen form from one end of the scale to the other, with just over a 50% win rate, securing eight games out of the last fourteen. They are unpredictable, and at times have appeared unconvincing and lacklustre, yet just as you might think they’re no longer a contender for the Elite League title, they go from a losing streak of three games, including an inexplicable home loss 5-1 to perennial strugglers Fife Flyers, to take convincing back-to-back wins over arch-enemies the Sheffield Steelers, who were riding high at the top of the table at the time. It’s rarely dull.
A routine Nottingham versus Edinburgh game on a cold, grey January evening pushed British ice hockey to the forefront of the news for all the wrong reasons, with an unprecedented incident involving former Panthers player Joe Grimaldi. The coverage made BBC news, UK and international press, and has had over 200,000 YouTube hits [see clip, below]. First, Grimaldi checked Panthers player Evan Mosey to the head, mid-ice. When team mate Max Parent stood up to defend Mosey he was speared (jabbed with the stick), then was taken by surprise as Grimaldi took off his helmet and threw it in Parent’s face before he actually started to fight. Having earned the small matter of 67 penalty minutes from a single incident, Grimaldi was thrown out of the game. A next-day sacking from the Capitals and an 18-game ban from the Elite League’s Department of Player Safety swiftly followed.
Asked for a comment on the incident, Nathan Robinson, former Panthers winger brought in for the European competition at the start of the season, felt the Elite League will not live up to its potential until it removes the minority of 'dangerous' players who drag it down, claiming he was targeted during his time in Nottingham: "The issue I had was there were times when it was dangerous playing. Some players, a very small number, would go after your knees, I found…You don't get things like that in Germany or Finland, for example”.
Aside from this unsavoury incident, it’s another story of injuries not having helped the Panthers, as GB captain David Clarke is now out for the rest of the season to recover from an essential operation on a shoulder injury. Others that have been on and off the injury list in the last few weeks are Steve Lee, Sam Oakford (concussion after an elbow to the head in Sheffield), Greg Jacina, Max Parent and the unfortunate Chris Higgins, who returned for a short while before getting a nasty hit to the knee in a recent game against Fife, which looks like it will side-line him for a while.
Mattias Modig has continued in nets for the majority of games as Craig Kowalski, regular net-minder, continues to recover from his recurrent injury. On the traditional Boxing Day game against Sheffield away, Modig was the first Panthers goaltender to earn a shutout (clean sheet) at the Motorpoint Arena since Curtis Cruickshank on 11 September 2005. Modig has already proved himself to be the best goalie in the League, with a 92 per cent save ratio from 16 games. It does no harm to his popularity that he sports a classic Swedish look, with a blond shock of hair. Kowalski returned for one game in the Challenge Cup against Fife, and Coach Corey Neilson is in the fortunate position of being able to choose from two of the best net-minders in the league, plus retaining Dan Green in back up. If Modig were to be Kowalski’s successor, should the latter retire next season, I doubt there would be any complaints.
Mattias Modig warms up [image: Sally Utton]
At the other end of the ice, Chris Lawrence continues to lead the way in scoring for Panthers with 18 goals to date this season, and he was also recently named Elite League Player of the Week. Nottingham do not have one player in the top twenty scorers in the league, so a sniper would be a welcome addition.
Neilson has taken his time to sign new players this season, despite the injuries, possibly having learned a lesson or two from the revolving door that was the locker room last season, but Panthers have found some quality in recent additions, particularly Guillaume Doucet, who played his first game for Nottingham only hours after arriving in the UK, starting off with a goal against the Sheffield Steelers. Twenty-eight year old Canadian, he played for Hull last year and racked up an impressive tally of 50 goals in the season and was Stingrays’ player of the year. The Montreal native was recently playing in Denmark, before coming to Nottingham to cover Chris Higgins latest injury.
It’s always a pleasure to beat the Sheffield Steelers and Panthers seem to have their number this month. We embarrassed them by winning 4-0 on Boxing Day at the Motorpoint Arena, then again at the National Ice Centre on December 27, and yet again last weekend, winning 4-1, even reducing the usually boisterous orange-clad home crowd of steel to silence, before they recovered their voices to boo their team off the ice, afterwards applauding the Panthers for their display.
Panthers and Steelers give each other festive greetings [image: Sally Utton]
Away from the Elite League, Nottingham have progressed to the semi-final stage of the Challenge Cup for the sixth year on the bounce. The home game against Fife was virtually a dead rubber as Panthers went into the game with a 7-2 lead and Fife’s key player Matt Nickerson serving a three-game ban for fighting. The Panthers will face Sheffield in the semi-final, with the second leg at home on February 24.
Before that, it’s the bread and butter of the league. The table is incredibly tight at the top and two wins this weekend saw Panthers move from fifth to second, with three games in hand against the current leaders, Braehead Clan. Coming up is more action against the Coventry Blaze, who are currently ninth in the table, but have beaten the Panthers once already this season. That’s followed by a tough assignment: trying to beat the Cardiff Devils in their rink, the Big Blue Tent.
There are five teams currently jostling for superiority – including Sheffield and Belfast, who have both shown excellent form already this season yet recently suffered unlikely defeats, with Cardiff and Clan, both strong consistent teams – all sitting within a point of each other. It’s a race to maintain consistency right now, an exciting and healthy league with so many possible winners and unpredictable results. That said, my money is on Panthers.
Follow Sally on Twitter: @sautton22
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