Sheffield Steelers and why now is the time to turn up the heat on Elite League leaders Belfast Giants

The Steelers make their third and final visit of the season to Cardiff Devils tonight where they will hope to close the gap on the Giants to three points.

With just 13 games remaining, the Steelers’ hopes of reducing the deficit took a slight knock on Sunday when they fell to a 3-2 defeat in a shootout at Guildford Flames.

And their latest midweek challenge is no simple task, either, taking them to one of just two buildings they are yet to win in this season, the other being Coventry Blaze’s SkyDome Arena.

The Steelers have lost on all four previous visits to the Devils’ Vindico Arena this season, most recently in the second leg of the Challenge Cup semi-final when Cardiff won 4-1 to overturn a 5-3 deficit from the first leg in Sheffield the previous week.

And with Cardiff coming into the game on a poor run of form which has seen their own title hopes all but disappear - including a 6-0 defeat in Belfast on Saturday - Steelers’ head coach Fox knows his players will meet some kind of response from Pete Russell’s players.

“That second scoreline in Belfast surprised me a little bit, for sure,” said Fox. “But we know they’ve been very good against us, they’ve been very good in their barn against us and they will probably give us a response game.”

Fox is aware his team needs help from elsewhere in order to stand any chance of overhauling Belfast, who visit Nottingham Panthers tonight in the second leg of their Challenge Cup semi-final, which they lead 3-0.

“We know what the situation looks like and we know we need to continue to win games and continue to put pressure on them,” added Fox.

“They don’t play league (until the weekend) so if we can get it to three (points) in Cardiff, then that’s within two games of them.

“Then they have a tough weekend, in Manchester on Saturday and then at home against Glasgow on Sunday.

“We need to make them earn it, we need to make them feel us down the back of their neck and put some pressure on them and if we can get it down to three points then that can increase the pressure on them, absolutely.”