Finnerty apologetic before beating Hull

While pleased with the overall level performance of his team, Finnerty admitted indiscipline cost his team dearly as they slipped to a third defeat of the season against Corey Neilson’s side.

And the 30-year-old Canadian admitted he was among his team’s chief culprits, something evident towards the end of the first league meeting of the season between the two sides when he was handed a 10-minute misconduct call after being penalised for interference.

The game itself was decided by a solitary power play strike, coming midway through the second period when David Clarke pounced at 29.35 with Steelers’ Mark Thomas in the penalty box on a slashing call.

The weekend ended on a high note, however, after the Steelers were able to edge out Yorkshire rivals Hull Stingrays 2-1 at Ice Sheffield on Sunday to keep their hopes of reaching the Challenge Cup semi-finals very much alive.

At this stage of the season, the result in Nottingham won’t have seriously harmed Steelers’ title chances to any great extent, with the narrow defeat at the National Ice Centre being only their second league loss so far.

The crushing disappointment will have been tempered somewhat after hearing of another surprise defeat for leaders Belfast Giants at home to Cardiff Devils meaning the Steelers remain six points behind Doug Christiansen’s team with five games in hand.

Nottingham’s defeat of the Steelers, together with an 8-1 win at Fife Flyers on Sunday night, leaves them clear in second place and four points ahead of their South Yorkshire rivals but, crucially, Finnerty’s third-placed team have five games in hand.

“I was more than pleased with the level of performance from my players on Saturday,“ said Finnerty. “We had all kinds of chances to win that game, but we lost a bit of our discipline and control and that starts with me.

“For me, I had to apologise to my players. I can’t demand them to do something if I can’t do it myself and it’s a pretty low feeling when you feel like you’ve let down your team.

“To get the right result and to get the work-rate out of your team you’ve got to be doing what you preach - that’s key as a player-coach and I definitely learned a hard lesson on Saturday night.”

The Steelers face the Panthers again on Sunday at the Motorpoint Arena, when the two meet for a fourth time this season - the first two matches having been in the Challenge Cup.

The narrow victory gained against a stubborn Hull on Sunday means Finnerty’s team still control their own destiny in Group B of the Cup, knowing wins in their remaining two games against Coventry Blaze and Cardiff Devils will assure them of a place in the last four alongside group winners Nottingham.

Steelers went ahead somewhat fortuitously in the 13th minute at their at Ice Sheffield when a fierce Finnerty shot cannoned back off the post and bounced in off Stingrays’ goaltender Christian Boucher, although the goal was eventually awarded to Colt King who had been quick to follow up the rebound.

In a more even second period, Steelers doubled their advantage just over five minutes in when RG Flath grabbed his third in four games since arriving as an emergency replacement for the injured Mike Ramsay.

But a more urgent-looking Stingrays halved the deficit at 37.05 when Andy McKinney - fresh from making the step up earlier in the week from Telford Tigers - squeezed the puck past netminder John DeCaro following a scramble in front of the net.

Both sides went close to adding to their tally in an open third period but both net minders stood firm - in particular Boucher - to leave Steelers well-placed to progress and Hull languishing at the bottom of the group standings.

Having lost their first five group games, Hull were long out of the competition but went close to earning their first win on Saturday against Coventry, particularly after they were 2-0 ahead at the end of the second period through strikes from Dominic Osman and Jereme Tendler.

But a 48th-minute goal from Matic Kralj halved the deficit before Shea Guthrie levelled six minutes later to ensure the points were shared.

Player-coach Sylvain Cloutier’s side now face three crucial league games in the next seven days, beginning with a trip to Fife Flyers on Tuesday night.

While disappointed with his team’s poor showing in the Challenge Cup, Cloutier admitted he was happy to now be only focussing on the league programme.

“Obviously you always want to win and compete in all the competitions, but it was a tough group and we knew that from the very start,” he said.

“Our goal was to win our four home games and then try to steal the odd point on the road somewhere but, obviously, that didn’t happen.

“I was just trying to get out of this weekend with no injuries and make sure that we were healthy for the week ahead because we’ve got three big matches coming up.

“We managed to do that (stay healthy) and I felt the players did a great job over the two games. As a coach I’m proud of them because they came and competed for two games where there wasn’t a great deal in it for us.”