Sheffield v Nottingham, a big semi-final game and it would be the same story as the final the year before as Sheffield would need to go to Nottingham needing to win by 2+ goals.
Sheffield had Jeff Legue back in the line-up while Tim Spencer was the healthy scratch and Robert Dowd will still out injured and we had a semi-final night in Sheffield. Steelers started strong despite giving Nottingham a power play after just 31 seconds but while they was shorthanded had a great opportunity through Jonathan Phillips as he skated his way onto a breakaway only to find himself unable to get a shot away on Kowalski's goal which would be followed by good opportunities for Lacroix and after fantastic work by Phillips he played to Hewitt who slid the puck to Hill only to see his shot saved on the doorstep, Nottingham however controlled large parts of the 1st session spending some lengthy times in the Sheffield zone going close through Francis, Salters and Clarke but on 12:21 Nottingham would deservedly go ahead when on a 2 on 1 break Clarke played to Salters who received the puck just in the blue line to shoot low past Doyle to give the Panthers a one goal lead. Just after the goal something must have wound Robert Farmer up after having words with Fata it looked as if he was going for a sucker punch on Fata from behind only to be stopped by the linesman that would be followed by some Sheffield power play times with Baldwin and Lee in the box for roughing, Phil Oreskovic was given a two minute penalty for a cross check only for Henley to follow him 10 seconds later for a check from behind on Stefan Meyer to give the Steelers a 5 on 3 power play chance for 1:50 and at 14:29 Chad Langlais would pick up the loose puck after a Nottingham player had fallen over and would fire a snapshot over the shoulder of Kowalski to level the scores at 1-1. Just under two minutes later Sheffield would have the puck in the back of the net again after Kowalski had released a rebound and Chris Blight hit it past him only for referee Mike Hicks to wave no goal as Blight was deemed to had made contact with the goaltender when Blight wasn't even in the crease and Blight had been denied a perfectly good goal. Both teams would go in the 1st intermission level at 1-1 despite Sheffield having a perfectly second goal ruled out. But Nottingham scoring first seemed to spark Sheffield into life and at least lift their game a little.
The second period got underway and Nottingham didn't hang about as Kalus found himself in space to shoot and he hit the post despite him claiming it went in but Mike Hicks just shook the head. Blight would be in the box for hooking and Nottingham would be on the power play eventually being able to set up after persistence from Phillips and Legue to stop them but Lachowicz would pick up a puck from in front of Doyle to fire a snapshot over the shoulder of Doyle that hit the crossbar and went to give the Panthers the lead again, things got even worse just 20 seconds later on 26:43 Robert Farmer would add a third goal after Doyle dropped a rebound for Farmer to knock the puck in the back of the net for a 3-1 lead. Within minutes though Drew Fata received the puck of captain Steven Goertzen on the blue and fired a massive slap shot straight into the back of the net to bring Sheffield within one on 29:27. The game then started to heat up between the players after a coming together of players when Kohn received two minutes for boarding and two minutes for roughing as well as Matt Francis taking a roughing penalty there was a coming together of Brent Henley and Jason Hewitt where Henley was only holding Hewitt back by the face and the only punch thrown was by Sheffield's Jason Hewitt and then it all just seemed to die down. Sheffield would successfully kill the power play where Doyle would make an absolutely fantastic save of a Lachowicz shot from in front. Sheffield would be denied a penalty shot after Jeff Legue had been played in for a breakaway only to be slashed by Lee followed by Kowalski saving his shot but for the slash Sheffield did receive a power play in which a fantastic opportunity was wasted after Drew Fata took a shot from the blue line on for the puck to drop perfectly for Dustin Kohn to shoot into the open goal only to see his shot blocked. Nottingham would take a 3-2 lead into the second interval.
The Third period got underway with Sheffield knowing they had to perform and it didn't take long to level the scoreline when on 42:07 Hewitt passed to Baldwin skating over the blue line who shot a big slap shot that went low and into the back of the net to come back from two goals down to level the scores at 3-3 which erupted the home faithful. Sheffield suddenly had the momentum where they was throwing hits in, skating hard and trying to get the puck to the net but on 49:13 Sheffield received a kick in the teeth after Matt Francis saw his shot saved by Doyle only to be dropped just in front of goal but Clarke couldn't put in from close range but Kalus got the tip of his stick on the puck to knock it in to put Nottingham back in the lead after great work from Sheffield. Doyle would deny Greg Jacina from scoring after 3 on 1 break as the Nottingham player shot straight into the glove of Doyle, going into the last five minutes of the game Sheffield had another power play but wouldn't be able to create any decent opportunities and going into the dying seconds of the games Kowalski would make a save but would play the puck to Leigh Salters who would skate down to left hand side only to play to Kalus 2 on 1 to shoot past Frank Doyle with 6 seconds left on the clock to take a two goal lead back to Nottingham for the second leg.
FINAL SCORE: Sheffield Steelers 3-5 Nottingham Panthers
Boxscore (1st-2nd-3rd-OT-[PIM]-{PP}-S)
Sheffield - 1-1-1-0-[10]-{1/6}-35
Nottingham - 1-2-2-0-[16]-{1/3}-32
Sheffield Man of the Match: #2 Chad Langlais
Nottingham Man of the Match: #33 Craig Kowalski
Referee: #27 Mike Hicks
Referee:
Linesman: #14 James Kavanagh
Linesman: #22 Paul Staniforth
A 5-3 win for Nottingham going back to the NIC for the second leg, a big ask for Sheffield but is it possible yes off-course it is, its sport and stranger things have happened. This was a game where none of our forwards score and all three of our goals came from a defender which simply isn't good enough and this was a game that turned out to be Doug Christiansen's final game that none of us saw coming.
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Tom
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