How Sheffield Steelers hope to engineer early advantage over Elite League rivals Cardiff Devils

The Steelers came out on top in the two pre-season games against Pete Russell’s side a fortnight ago, following up a 4-3 overtime win in South Wales with a clinical 1-0 triumph on home ice 24 hours later.

The Steelers maintained their winning momentum when the regular league season got underway last weekend, edging out Coventry Blaze 3-2 in overtime before coming away from Guildford Flames on the back of an impressive 3-1 triumph.

Under Great Britain head coach Russell, Cardiff are once again expected to be in the mix for silverware this season.

But so are the Steelers and any advantage they can gain over their South Wales rivals - even at this very early stage of the season - could prove crucial in the long run.

“Our new guys got a good look at their group over the course of those two games and we feel like there are some advantages that we can use against them,” said Fox, whose team first head to Nottingham Panthers tonight in the first game of their Challenge Cup Group C campaign.

“But, at the end of the day, it’s about which team shows up and is ready to dig in and do the dirty work.

“We know it will be a tough test, they are a very good team and their top six are extraordinarily good - so we’ve got to prepare to defend and be physical and hope we can take advantage of our offence when we produce it.”

Fox says his players will go into the weekend’s games – Cardiff visit Sheffield on Sunday (4pm) – in good spirits with last weekend’s performances having continued the good mood in the squad that was quickly established during pre-season training camp.

“I felt like our first period (against Coventry) was our worst of the weekend, so we got better shift by shift, period by period and got rewarded with the four points at the end of it,” added Fox.

“So it was good for our group and helped keep the good vibe around the rink all week, but that has been the case since training camp.”