THINGS are looking up on the injury front for Nottingham Panthers, with three of their four long-term casualties already pencilling in return dates.

Bottom club Basingstoke Bison are at the National Ice Centre tonight (7pm) and Panthers will be looking to rack up their already impressive goals tally even further.

But they will find it harder on Sunday away to a Hull Stingrays outfit still in with a chance of making the play-offs.

Panthers skipper Danny Meyers, who dislocated his shoulder when fighting Hull's Jason Kostadine three weeks ago, will again be out but says a comeback against Sheffield next weekend is a possibility.

He is back on the ice and is putting the injury through a rigorous testing regime with conditioning coach Scott Poundall.

But he will not be risked unduly and a final decision will not be made until his full fitness is confirmed.

Matthew Myers (knee) is the biggest worry as specialists still insist he cannot skate for six weeks, which would see a return on play-off finals weekend at the beginning of April.

But David Clarke, who has missed nine games since taking a nasty knock during the win at Cardiff in January, could yet be back this weekend.

Dan Tessier's knee injury, sustained during the shoot-out defeat to Sheffield on Valentine's Day, has also been put through the mill by physio Poundall.

He may take a little longer but has already set the trip to Belfast on March 13 as his target to return.

But even without Tessier's guile, Panthers still lead the way in power-play scoring, despite a miserable time recently against chief rivals Sheffield, Belfast and Coventry.

But that has been one of the areas player-coach Corey Neilson once again concentrated on this week in training. Unfortunately, though Panthers' speed and skill means the opposition hands them lots of power- play opportunities, having the man advantage also puts a lot of pressure on Neilson.

With Tessier out, Neilson has been playing as the main fulcrum on all the power-play units.

And he would be the first to admit, the extra ice time has been taking its toll towards the end of games.

Neilson said: "We've had a busy stretch of games so I gave the guys an extra day off this week.

"I certainly needed a rest so hopefully everyone came back refreshed and ready.

"The thing is, when four important players are taken away from a team – players who can make a difference in tight games – every one has to take up the slack.

"But I'm pretty confident we will do the job this weekend."