Cardiff Devils 3 - 1 Nottingham Panthers

Faceoff: 19:00 - 05/11/11

A Man of the Match performance by Stevie Lyle helped the Devils beat the Panthers in Cardiff for the second time this season.

With Nottingham starting the game well, Lyle had to be in inspired form to deny Nottingham time after time in a frantic first period. The Panthers did think they had beaten Lyle to open the scoring, but the goal was disallowed due to referee Tom Darell having already blowing the whistle.

With both sides having a man in the box, the Devils opened the scoring in the 14th minute. Josh Batch took the puck up the left wing and after doing well to avoid an attempted hipcheck from Stephen Lee, kept control of the puck before firing across a perfect pass for Max Birbraer to slam home.

The frenetic pace of the game didn't let up with the second period once again seeing end-to-end action. Nottingham came closest to adding to the score when a shot finally beat Lyle only for it to bounce back off the post and land on the line before the Devils quickly cleared the puck out of the zone.

Nottingham continued to put pressure on the Cardiff net but Lyle refused to be beaten, making save after save when the Panthers looked destined to score. With ten minutes remaining the Devils counter-attacked quickly with Stuart MacRae taking the puck over the blueline. His drop-pass was met with a powerful slapshot from Jeff Pierce that Craig Kowalski could only block with his pad, allowing Max Birbraer to brilliantly control the puck with his skate before flicking it into the net.

With less than three minutes remaining the home side sealed the win with a third. Sam Smith broke down the left wing before releasing a shot that sneaked past Kowalski and into the net.

Nottingham did get a consolation goal with 18 seconds remaning to break Lyle's shutout, but it was too little too late to stop the Devils picking up a fantastic win.