Steelers v Panthers

Match Report

The Nottingham Panthers were beaten 5-1 on-the-road at Sheffield Steelers in the Elite League on Tuesday.

It was an emotional return to Sheffield for the first time since the passing of Adam Johnson and the Panthers were given a beautiful ovation by the Steelers supporters pre-game and post-game.

Panthers, who were already without Josh Tetlow (broken arm) and Westin Michaud (upper body), had Rok Stojanovic (upper body) and Ollie Betteridge (lower body) ruled out on the day of the game.

Mike Robinson started between the pipes with Luca Sheldon as back-up.

Robert Dowd tapped-in at the backdoor to give Steelers the lead (3:34) and the GB international made it 2-0 when he drove the net after a quick Sheffield break (11:41).

Otto Nieminen set-up Hugo Roy to go top-shelf at the backdoor short-handed (16:00), before Marc-Olivier Vallerand fired in Sheffield's third from the slot on the powerplay (17:25).

Tyler Welsh was denied by a superb save by Matt Greenfield and at the other end, Robinson made an outstanding pad save to stonewall Mark Simpson from close-range.

Brett Neumann was allowed time and space in the right-circle to score Sheffield's fourth on the powerplay (39:06) and Cole Shudra blasted home a fifth goal with a one-timer from just inside the blueline (49:50).