MANCHESTER Storm re-opened a four-point gap at the top of the Superleague last night as they cruised past a depleted Panthers side with a comfortable and impressive 6-0 victory. Storm went about their business in clinical fashion in a near flawless first period and opened the scoring when Finnish defenceman Marko Sten rifled a piledriver of a shot past Mike Zanier in the eighth minute to register his first goal for the club.

Rick Brebant added a powerplay marker as Zanier failed to hold on to a Kris Miller shot and Jeff Tomlinson powered in the third before the first interval.

Inside a minute of the third period stand-in skipper Troy Neumeier showed great composure to score the fourth. Pierre Allard got a delightful deflection to a Blair Scott blast for the fifth and Jeff Jablonski rounded off the scoring. Kurt Kleinendorst enthused: "That first period was as good as any we've played this season, we were calm and controlled and finished well.

"Our powerplay could have worked a little better in the second period so it was nice to get the goals in the third period and now that we have the four-point lead again over Cardiff, we only have to worry about ourselves."

If we can keep on winning, there's nothing they can do although we won't be taking any of our remaining eight games lightly, we've come too far to let it slip away."

Storm only have one game this week-end when the defending Superleague champions Ayr Scottish Eagles visit the Arena on Saturday with a 7pm face-off.

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