Steelers shut down powerful Panthers

Doug Christiansen’s side won 2-0 in front of a bumper crowd of 8,000 at the Motorpoint Arena.

Only a single goal split the sides after the opening period of action and it was GB international Robert Dowd with the shot that beat Neil Conway at 14.40.

The second session followed a similar pattern with Panthers creating and failing to take several chances while at the other end Steelers went 2-0 ahead thanks to a strike by Sirianni at 32.55.

Try as they might Panthers could not breakthrough a solid home defence with Doyle in confident form between the pipes. Visiting frustrations saw Robert Lachowicz ejected on a game misconduct for abuse at 56.41.

Christiansen said: “It was an unbelievable environment and the guys responding from the first drop of the puck.

“It was an outstanding achievement by the team

“They worked as hard as they possibly could and to shut out the Nottingham Panthers is quite an accomplishment because they’re an outstanding offensive team but we dug our heels in and did the job.”