Finnerty enjoys profitable return in Sheffield

But the 32-year-old Canadian must have taken some satisfaction from his new charges Braehead Clan defeating his former club 5-4 after a dramatic shoot-out last night.

“It definitely feels good to get a win here,” said Finnerty.

“We found ourselves defending a lot, but we kept most of it to the outside and had plenty of opportunities for ourselves. We came in here tired after going to Belfast the night before but, for a young team, we played really well. I’m proud of everyone on that team.”

The Clan were 2-0 ahead at the end of the first period with goals from Scott Aarssen and Shane Lust. Steelers halved the deficit through Jeff Legue at 26.34, only for the visitors to restore their two-goal lead with a second strike by Lust just under five minutes later.

Steelers were level by the end of the second, though, through Robert Dowd and Dustin Kohn and, after Stefan Meyer and Ray Macias traded goals in the third it was forced into a shoot-out, with the Clan taking it 2-0 for the extra point.

Steelers will view the solitary point gained from the weekend as a bitter disappointment, particularly after going down 7-3 at Nottingham Panthers in the Challenge Cup the previous evening.

Steelers’ captain Steven Goertzen gave his team the lead at 10.02, but that was the only time Doug Christiansen’s side were in front, finding themselves 3-1 down by the end of the first.

Maxime Lacroix bagged two to keep Steelers to pull within one goal at 4-3 until the last 10 minutes when the Panthers ran away with it through three further goals.

Following the setback to Braehead, Christiansen acknowledged that his side’s performances needed to be better.

“As a hockey cloub right now, we need to improve,” said Christiansen. “We need to play better defence to 200f feet, giveing up the amount of goals we are givbing up isn’t sustainable for a team that wants to accomplish the goals that we want to accomplish.

“All the things that go into defence we need to improve on and that’s every single man. We need to pull together as a team and use this adversity to catapult us forward.

“We can’t give up as manay goals as we have been as a hockey team - if we can play better team defence, better as a group we will improve.”

With forward Maxime Lacroix and defenceman Chad Langlais both out injured, Christiansen said he would be sitting down with owner Tony Smith this week to dicuss bringing in replacements to bolster his misfiring squad.

“I’m sure Tony Smith and I are going to talk about what options I have from a financial point of view,” he added.

“Marc (LeFebvre - assistant coach) have already started to compile a list of players to obviously prepare for those eventualities that come over the course of the season, you’re always keeping an eye on the marketplace and once Tony and I have that discussion I’m sure we’ll be looking to find out how we can improve this team.”