Sheffield Steelers blasted as 'bad, lazy and soft' after Elite League hammering at Cardiff Devils
“WE ARE bad, we are lazy, we are soft.”
For some time now, Sheffield Steelers’ head coach Aaron Fox has had the air of a man perhaps biting his tongue after poor performances by his team. On Wednesday night in Cardiff, that was not the case.
Short of naming specific players, Fox laid into his team wearing the look of a man totally bewildered by what he had just witnessed in a 5-0 defeat at the hands of Cardiff Devils.
With the Elite League title having disappeared with back-to-back home defeats in mid-march to recently-crowned champions Belfast Giants, the Steelers have effectively been counting down to the play-offs.
But, given what Fox thought of their collective efforts in South Wales, it’s unlikely he will be recommending anyone to put money on his team getting beyond the first round of the play-offs when they kick off in just over a week’s time.
It wasn’t just the fact his team were almost out-shot 2-to-1 on the night, what clearly hurt or angered Fox was that his team were out-battled and out-muscled.
Trailing 2-0 after 40 minutes through strikes from the Devils’ Kristoff Kontos and Joey Martin, there was still some hope of a Steelers’ revival in the third period.
But that disappeared with more than 10 minutes still remaining when the Devils added two goals in as many minutes from Cole Sanford and Brett Perlini, a miserable night for the visitors being completed when Nolan Yaremko made it 5-0 at 55.41.
The performance left Fox perplexed and fearing the worst when the play-offs come around.
“Honestly, I don't even care about the wins and losses at this stage,” said the American. “Second, third and fourth place - it really doesn't matter. There's teams in five, six, seven, eight who all can play and so there's going to be good matchups all across the board.
“What we're looking for is just to put a little belief in each other's minds that when we play the right way and we do the little things and we out-compete teams, that we're a very good hockey team.
“But,again, that buy-in right now is non-existent.
“You know, as an organisation that treats its players extremely well, the level of professionalism back from some of the guys in the room right now just isn't there, and that's not okay.
“There’s two hockey games left before the playoffs. And I know we've played some really good hockey through stretches of the year - but, right now, we are bad, we're lazy, we're soft.
“There's just certain things in this business that you just can't win without.
“If you're not going to be first, if you're not going to win battles, if you're not going to win some 50-50s, if you're not going to punch someone in the face, when they punch you in the face first.
“If that competitive edge isn't there, it's really hard to win hockey games.”
Fox said there was a narrow window for those players under-performing to find their game, ahead of closing the regular season out this weekend with a double-header against a Glasgow Clan team who beat Dundee Stars 4-0 on Wednesday.
“As a group, there's some guys that really need to do some soul-searching,” added Fox.
“You know, the frustrating thing is there's a lot of really good people in that room and good characters in that room and guys that do work hard and want it - but there's just too many passengers at the moment.”