It only took 44 seconds for the home side to open the scoring. Matt Pope picked up the puck off a faceoff win by Joey Martin and drove around the Panthers defender and tucked the puck up over Patrick Galbraith to make it 1-0.
The Devils doubled their lead when Patrick Asselin got the last touch on a scrambling puck in front of the Nottingham net to put the Devils up 2-0 at 9:39. Just over a minute later in a near identical play Paul Crowder got the credit for another scrambling puck that found its way in the back of the Panthers net to give the Devils a 3-0 lead at 10:49.
The Panthers made a change in goal with Mike Garnett replacing Patrick Galbraith after the 3rd goal but the Devils were quick to score another when Joey Martin made it 4-0 after some great work by Matt Pope and Jake Morissette at 11:16.
After that, the Panthers settled down in front of Garnett and pulled a goal back before the end of the first period when Ollie Betteridge tipped a pass from Erik Lindhagen past Ben Bowns to give the Panthers some life and make it 4-1, which is how it stayed after 20 minutes of play.
The scoreline looked to remain the same after the second period of play but a broken play on a late Devils powerplay sent Jeff Brown in alone on the Devils goal and he snuck it past Bowns for a shorthanded goal to make it 4-2 with only 12 seconds left in the period.
The Devils got an insurance marker on the powerplay with a goal from Layne Ulmer set up by Joey Martin and Jake Morissette at 42:40 to give the Devils a 5-2 lead. The penalty kill had to be on top form when Ulmer was called for 4 minutes for high-sticking but again the penalty killing was perfect on the night.
