Triumph for Panthers

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Less than 3 minutes in, Panthers had a lead and added another nearly immediately after that before cruising to a 5-2 home ice win over the visiting Flames.

Christophe Boivin opened the Panthers account on a powerplay at 2:50. Jeremy Welsh had them 2 goals to the good just 83 seconds after that. At 9:56, Ian McNulty cut into the deficit and Surrey’s side went to break a goal off the pace.

Boivin had the only goal of the middle frame, his 2nd of the contest, for a 3-1 lead, and then went up another at 48:34 through Ollie Betteridge. In the 54th minute Jake Bolton replied for the visitors, but with Flames net empty in favour of an extra skater to try and get back into it late, Robbie Baillargeon found the unguarded cage to close out the 5-2 final.

“Not the way we were hoping to get started on a 2 game road weekend,” said Paul Dixon, “but we are going to have to find a way to quickly move on.”

“We can’t do anything about this one now so we will focus on Glasgow and try to make sure we can grab points in their building.”

“They are much further along now in their progression from a late start, so we are going to have to be on point from the opening moments and hopefully we can use tonight’s result as motivation to do just that.”