Panthers 5 Capitals 2

With the greatest respect a game against the Caps is never going to be the most glamorous of fixtures, but still just under 4,000 people turned out on a freezing Saturday night for this one.

The first period was incredibly one sided with Panthers out shooting the visitors 18-4! The Caps owed a great deal of thanks to netminder Pasi Raitanen for keeping them in it with some magnificent stops, however he was breached by a Brendan Cook one timer after great one time passing from Johan Molin and Matt Myers.

Panthers started to pull away in the second as the much maligned Jade Galbraith scored twice on the powerplay with a couple of neat finishes, but once again Raitanen was keeping the Caps in it. Player/Coach Doug Christiansen pulled one back for the Caps with a scrambled goal. His ‘wooing’ celebration in front of the Panthers fans was quite odd considering his team were still two goals behind!

If Raitanen had been superb in the first two periods he simply excelled in the third, preventing his team from an embarrassing scoreline with saves that frankly he had no right to make! Panthers did mange to put a couple past him as the excellent Molin scored on a 5 on 3 powerplay and Cook added his second, also with the man advantage. Mark Hurtubise scored a late consolation for the Caps but the result wasn’t in doubt and Panthers had another two points in the bag with their third win on the spin.

For once it was good to see Panthers actually turn up for a game against a so-called ‘lower’ side, we’ve been stung before this season in games against Hull and Basingstoke, so to win so comfortably made a pleasant change. Brendan Cook took the man of the match award but although he played well I would have given it to Molin for an excellent game which saw him finish with stats of 1+4. Pasi Raitanen deservedly took the award for the Caps and earned a standing ovation from the crowd for a quite simply magnificent netminding performance.

With Belfast and Coventry both losing this was an important two points in Panthers quest for the runners up spot (The title is surely Sheffield’s now, sadly). Only another win tonight in Hull will be acceptable.