Sheffield Steelers denied silverware as Nottingham Panthers fire overtime winner in Elite League play-off semi-finals

The Steelers had led 2-0 at one point at the National Ice Centre, then found themselves trailing 3-2 with only 81 seconds remaining until Mitchell Balmas’s strike forced the game into overtime.

But the extra five minutes of 3-on-3 was only 34 seconds old when Panthers’ captain Sam Herr worked space for himself and fired past Matt Greenfield to take his team into Sunday’s final against Cardiff Devils, who had earlier beaten league and Cup champions Belfast Giants 5-0.

For the Steelers the 4-3 loss will be a devastating way to end the season, coming just 12 months on from winning a treble.

But head coach Aaron Fox felt his players deserved better given the way they controlled most of the offence through the game, perhaps the only thing they were guilty of being unable to take the many chances they created.

“There are nights when you probably look back and don’t think you did enough to win hockey games, but I don’t think tonight was one of those nights,” said Fox.

“I thought we controlled most of the play and created the majority of offence between the two teams but it’s a game of fine margins.

“We outshot them 17-3 in the first period, I think but we were only up 1-0 and so we maybe didn’t take our chances there.”

Having required overtime to get past Glasgow Clan in last weekend’s quarter-finals - having trailed 3-1 after the first leg - the Steelers got themselves ahead just before the end of the first period in Nottingham through Sam Tremblay.

It got even better when Mitchell Balmas fired them into a 2-0 lead at 34.14, although Nottingham got themselves back into the game quickly when - after what Fox felt was a questionable boarding call on Brandon Whistle - Hugo Roy made the most of the subsequent power play when halving the deficit at 37.40.

Two minutes into the third and the Panthers hauled themselves level through Reid Stefanson, the goal setting up what looked like overtime until Mitchell Fossier put Danny Stewart’s team ahead at 57.41.

But the game wasn’t done yet, Steelers’ pulling Greenfield and levelling things up again through a fortuitous second goal for Balmas at 58.39.

Unlike last weekend, though, when overtime arrived, this time it did not go the Steelers’ way.