Nottingham Panthers are Play Off Championship winners

In the first period the teams were neck and neck with Coventry coming out fast but inadvertently giving away a few turnovers and Brian Stewart in the Coventry goal had to produce heroics to keep the scores tied, first Evan Mosey was denied one on one before Stewart stopped Brad Moran.

In the second period Nottingham piled on the pressure and Shultz broke the deadlock after 14 mins after his first shot had been blocked.

Coventry went searching for the equaliser and Wiikman was on top form to deny Tait and then Tanaka after both had capitalised on turnovers at the red line.

Around the middle of the period Nottingham were guilty of quick turnovers and it seemed as though Coventry sensed they were in with a chance.

Then on the eleventh minute of the second period Nottingham were forced to kill off a 5 on 3 powerplay and Jorgensen hit the post for Coventry closely followed by chances for Godfrey and Pietrus. But perhaps the best chance of the period fell to Robert Farmer when, after exiting the penalty box he found himself one on one with Stewart only for the big goaltender to keep the score at 1-0.

In the third it seemed that Nottingham’s strength in depth told eventually as they had been playing a physical game throughout and it was only a matter of time before defenceman Jonathan Quick score an insurance goal for Nottingham. Coventry battled to the end, however, but Mika Wiikman came out of the game with only the second shutout in EIHL play off history.

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