Hull cut gap on struggling Steelers

Hull remain bottom of the Elite League but are now just six points adrift of a Steelers side who again failed to deliver, losing 5-2 against Nottingham Panthers on Saturday before a demoralising defeat at home to Stingrays by the same margin last night.

With the end-of-season play-offs on the horizon, Cloutier's team – who defeated title hopefuls Belfast Giants 3-2 at home on Saturday – could prove to be the surprise package come the end of March.

"It was a good weekend for us," said Cloutier. "But I've been happy with performances for a while now, we just haven't been getting what we deserve.

"It's hard to remain positive when you keep losing but we've made such good progress in recent weeks that we knew something like this was just round the corner and it came against two good teams."

A frenetic opening at Sheffield Arena saw three goals fly in during the opening four minutes, leaving Steelers 2-1 ahead.

The hosts were first to strike, making the most of an early powerplay through defenceman Kevin Bolibruck's goal. But the lead didn't last for long as Hull enjoyed success on their own powerplay after Steelers' captain Jonathan Phillips had been penalised for interference.

Dan Green failed to hold on to Jason Silverthorn's shot which allowed Adam Knight to prod the rebound home. Hull's delight was quickly gone, however, when defenceman Jonathan Zion – making his home debut – finished off a Steelers breakaway to make it 2-1 at 3.30.

That's how it stayed until eight minutes into the second period when another rebound off Green allowed Curtis Huppe to draw Stingrays level.

Two goals in the space of a minute in the third put the visitors in control and silenced the home crowd. Silverthorn was first to pounce with his 11th of the season and, as Steelers tried to regroup, Craig Mitchell's shot from the blue line rocketed past Dan Green to make it 4-2.

Steelers head coach Dave Matsos called a timeout with just over a minute left and pulled goaltender Green at the same time but, after the puck went loose, player-coach Cloutier rubbed salt into the home side's wounds with an empty net goal.

On Saturday, Stingrays stunned Belfast thanks partly to new goaltender Martins Raitums stopping 37 shots.

Latvian international Raitums – who replaced the axed Tommy Sandahl midweek – kept his side in the match while Konstantin Kalmikov, Jeff Glowa and Pavel Gomenyuk took the goalscoring honours at the other end.

Debutant defenceman Zion got on the scoresheet but still made a losing start to his Steelers career in a fifth defeat of the season to Nottingham at the National Ice Centre on Saturday.

Kevin Bergin's 10th-minute strike gave the home side a 1-0 lead they held until two minutes before the end of the second period when Steelers' defenceman Randy Dagenais hit the back of the net.

But a similar defensive collapse to the one which enabled Panthers to clinch a 6-3 win at the National Ice Centre back in November, did for Steelers again this time when they conceded three goals in six forgettable third period minutes.

Cameron Mann shot the home side ahead before player-coach Corey Neilson added a third. David Clarke heaped further misery on Dave Matsos's side on a 5-on-3 powerplay.

Zion pulled one back for Steelers on the powerplay but Marc Levers found the empty net to make it 5-2.

A disappointed Matsos said his players would be made to work hard in training in an attempt to put things right on the ice.

"I'm disappointed, I'm embarassed and ashamed, not just with the result but with the lack of effort," said Matsos after the defeat to Hull. "We've never had the most talented team but we've always managed to outwork sides before – that didn't happen this weekend and that disappoints me greatly."