On the road, Flames pulled themselves out of a 2 goal hole, but Panthers were too much in the end scoring late in the 2nd then adding insurance that turned into the winner in the final stanza to send Flames home on the back of a 4-3 defeat.
Panthers opened the scoring in the back half of the 1st period off the stick of Sam Herr and Tim Doherty extended their lead at 18:12. Herr failed to beat Jake Kupsky on a late penalty shot to make it 3, but they still went to the break up a pair.
Special teams pulled the visitors back into the contest with Ryan Tait converting a powerplay in the 27th minute. After killing a 3 on 5 and getting back to 4 skaters, Daniel Catenacci bagged a short handed goal 1 second away from complete disposal of the last penalty, but Herr re-stored a lead 46 seconds from the end of the 2nd.
Near the 3rd period midway point, Nottingham re-gained their initial 2 goal cushion, with what turned in to the decider, thanks to a Hugo Roy powerplay goal, but with their own net empty in favour of an extra skater, Flames did get one back with 80 seconds on the clock thanks to Matt Alvaro.
“It’s unfortunate with some of the good chances we had at the end that we were not able to get a point and push the game to overtime,” offered Paul Dixon.
“Having said that, Panthers played a very good game and generated a lot of their own quality chances so they were full value for the win, but when you get as close as we did at the end its no fun going home completely empty handed.”
“Next up is Cardiff at home so we don’t have time to look back on all the ups and downs of this one, but just have to get ready tomorrow night and hopefully be up for a win in that one.”
