Storm knock off Panthers 4-2 to get back into series

The Peninsula Panthers had the luxury of a 2-0 lead in the 'Best-of-7' series against the Campbell River Storm and on Sunday night in the friendly confines of the Panorama Recreation Centre, they played like it.  It certainly was not a lackluster effort however, it was not the all-out assault that was on stage for everyone to view in the first two games of the series up in Campbell River.  And the result was deserved, a 4-2 loss against a hungry Storm team.  With the win, the Storm vaulted right back into the series and the result set the stage for an important tilt in Game 4 Monday night at the Panorama at 7:30 pm.

"I thought we got what we deserved," explained GM Pete Zubersky.  "It happens to teams at every single level when up 2-0 in a series.  Players look for the easy way to get a win.  They don't put in the effort that got them the wins in the first place and we were victims of that tonight.  It was an interesting evening in the League tonight.  The Cougars were up 2-0 against the Generals and lost at home.  The Bucs were up 2-0 against the Wolves and lost at the Q Centre.  And a few days ago, the Braves were up 2-0 on the Islanders and lost at home.  I think we will bring it back up a notch or two on Monday night."

There was no scoring throughout the first 20 minutes as both Panthers' goaltender Chris Akerman and Storm goaltender Aaron De Kok matched save for save.  But in the middle stanza, it was the Storm who would be first to crack the nut when at the 3:01 mark, Damon Porter found himself all alone in front of Akerman.  He made a move and after Akerman went down, he lifted it to the back of the Panthers' cage to open the scoring.  And just over three minutes later, Storm forward Pearce Messer added a marker of his own to extend the lead to 2-0.  Just after the timeout midway through the period and at the 10:52 mark, Storm forward Mike Dyck scored the prettiest goal on the evening to open up a commanding 3-0 lead for the visitors.  The two teams went to the 2nd intermission with the Storm lead intact.

All seemed lost and the minutes ticked off the clock however, at the 14:36 mark it was Tanner Wort who would be first to beat De Kok on helpers from Skyler Diamond-Burchuk and Riley Braun.  Wort had been snake-bitten down the stretch for the Panthers however, he seems to have regained his scoring touch and it certainly could not have come at a better time.  And then 57 ticks later the Panthers hit paydirt once again, this time on a wicked shot by Matt Sparrow from the slot that cleanly beat De Kok.  The barn began to rock and it seemed as though the Panthers might have a comeback in them.  But that was dashed when a Panthers' forward was rocked on a clean check in the neutral zone and a retaliation hack on the Storm player put the Club on the penalty kill.  And it would prove to be costly when Storm defenceman Scott Rademaker beat Akerman on the power play and with only 46 seconds left in the contest.

"The loss certainly pushes more chips into the pot for Monday night," quipped Zubersky.  "We knew this would not be easy, nothing worth getting ever is.  I spoke at our awards dinner on Sunday night and said that we need to play simple, we need to take care of our end.  And we need to do that moving forward.  This is going to be a great series, tomorrow night should be a lot of fun."

The remaining games in the series are as follows:

Game 4 @ Peninsula           Monday, March 4 @ 7:30 pm
Game 5 @ Campbell River  Tuesday, March 5 at 7:30 pm 
Game 6 @ Peninsula           Friday, March 8 at 7:30 pm (if needed)
Game 7 @ Campbell River  Saturday, March 9 at 7:30 pm (if needed)