Storm v Panthers

Match Report

The Nottingham Panthers were beaten 4-2 on-the-road by Manchester Storm in part one of this weekend's double-header.

The two sides meet again tomorrow at the Motorpoint Arena in Nottingham (7pm face-off).

The Panthers were without Josh Tetlow who continues his rehab to recover from a broken arm while Westin Michaud was also unavailable (upper body), but Ollie Betteridge returned to action. Rok Stojanvoic started between the pipes with Mike Robinson as back-up.

The hosts went ahead when Tyler Hinam neatly cut inside from the left (2:32), before Carl Neill slipped inside two defenceman and fed Betteridge who fired in Nottingham's equaliser (9:05).

Manchester were forced into a netminding change with Alex Oldale replacing the injured Evan Weninger (12:38).

Storm made a good start to the second period and Hinam broke away down the right-hand side short-handed and went top-shelf for his second of the night (22:19).

Panthers scored on the powerplay to equalise for a second time as Hugo Roy fed Alexander Lunsjö to tip-in from the slot (33:27).

Joe Morrow put Manchester ahead again with a one-time blast from the blueline that went just under Stojanovic (47:40)

With Stojanovic lifted for the extra skater, Morrow scored from his own zone into the empty net to secure two points for the hosts (58:59).