Sheffield Steelers v Guildford Flames: Steelers concentrate on themselves in bid to clinch the Elite League treble

Having already been beaten four times by Aaron Fox’s team out of five Elite League regular season encounters, Paul Dixon’s team had an opportunity to strike back when they came to the Utilita Arena for the Challenge Cup Final on March 13.

But they left on the back of a familiar tale, losing out 3-1 and having to watch as the Steelers celebrated their first trophy of what has already proved a memorable season.

Just over 10 days later, they were back in Sheffield. Again, they came off second-best, the Steelers this time enjoying even bigger celebrations as their 7-3 victory ensured they had won their first EIHL regular season crown since 2016.

Today, in Nottingham, the two come face-to-face with each other once again, the semi-finals of the EIHL play-offs at the Motorpoint Arena presenting the Flames with an opportunity to not just even the score, but deny the Steelers a grand slam, while also preserving their chance of going one better than they managed in the Challenge Cup.

In short, they will not be lacking motivation.

Steelers’ head coach Fox is fully aware of the threat posed by the Flames, but believes they will be more driven by their own quest for silverware than any grand plans to deny his team the treble.

“I don’t think they are going to be as worried about stopping us, to be honest,” said Fox. “I think they will be all about just trying to win a trophy themselves.

“That’s the beauty of this short play-off format, too, for some teams in this league. Guildford have had a great year again and have played for a trophy already – now they are just one game away from playing for another one.

“I’m sure in the back of their minds there might be some bulletin board material about not wanting to see us celebrating again but, at the end of the day, I’m sure they are just uber-focused on winning a hockey game and that it doesn’t really matter who they are playing in the semi-final. They are going to bring their best hockey. They absolutely steam-rollered through Manchester last weekend in the quarter-finals and won by eight goals or something, so they are bringing plenty of good form into the game.”

With seven previous encounters to look back on, Fox is fully aware of the threats awaiting his players in today’s first semi-final.

“We know what to expect, we’ve played a couple of very tight games against them, then the last game when we won the league, we opened it up a little bit after what had initially been another tight game.

“They are a really good team, well-coached and a great team in transition.

“You’ve got to try and shut down their speed on the outside and it will require a full 60-minute performance from us to get through to the final on Sunday, for sure.”

Understandably, a lot of the talk in recent weeks – even before the Steelers lifted the Challenge Cup – has been of the treble.

But for Fox and his players, that is simply outside noise, stuff and nonsense for others to worry and pontificate about.

As far as the Steelers are concerned, the play-offs are treated in isolation – it is just another trophy they are looking to win.

“If you’re looking at it in the sense of all three of them, I think it’s a great opportunity,” added Fox. “But we look at these as individual trophies and right now – we talked about going from the longest play-off in Europe into the shortest play-off in Europe – where you win four games and you get a trophy. This weekend is essentially a clean slate for all of the teams. It will be awesome to be able to go and win two games and finish the year off the right way by winning the play-offs.

“It was one of our goals at the start of the year and now, this weekend, we have a great opportunity to achieve that goal.”

Last year, the Steelers lost out at the semi-final stage when beaten 3-2 in overtime by Cardiff Devils, who went on to lose out in the final to Belfast Giants. Those two meet again in today’s second semi-final.

On that occasion, the Steelers made the short trip down the M1 on the day of the game. This year, Fox and his players will stay overnight in Nottingham.

"It is a fun weekend,” added Fox. “We only went down on the day given how close it is, but we’re actually going to go down on Friday, practice there on Friday, have the dinner Friday night. I just want the guys to feel part of the whole weekend, so it should be a good weekend.”

Sign up to the Sports Editor’s new Team Talk newsletter direct to your inbox every Monday.