Sheffield Steelers book chance to avenge Challenge Cup Final misery against Cardiff Devils

Lucas Sandtrom, right, squeezes the puck past Glasgow goalie Patrick Killeen in Wednesday's 4-0 win for Sheffield Steelers. Picture: Dean Woolley.

Already 5-1 up from the first leg two weeks ago at Braehead Arena the Steelers ran out 4-0 winners on the night at FlyDSA Arena.

The opening period ended goalless despite both sides creating some quality chances before the tie got further away from the visitors thanks to two goals in just over two minutes from Lucas Sandström.

The first came at 27.35 on the power play thanks to a feed from behind the net by John Armstrong before Sandstrom showed tremendous pace to lose his man arriving in front of the net to take a precision pass from Michael Davies before showing quick hands to fire past Killeen.

Marc-Olivier Vallerand was then allowed all the time in the worl to cirlce around from behind the net to then pick his spot to make it 8-1 overall to the Steelers at 38.11.

John Armstrong rounded off the night's scoring at 50.58 with a second powerplay strike of the night for the Steelers when he made the most of a neat feed from Marek Troncinsky.

"It's a good feeling, we've worked hard all year and this is one of our goals to be playing in that final in Cardiff in March - I'm looking forward to it," said Steelers' head coach Aaron Fox afterwards.

"I liked our game tonight, we were ready from the first puck drop, even though we were four ahead from the first leg and I felt that was a pretty one-sided game tonight.

"We're not passive hockey team, and if you're going to sit back it is only going to - some people call it like a prevent-defence and I call it the prevent-win-defence. We just don't want any doubt to creep into our heads during that hockey game.

"We wanted to make sure we got off to a good start, that we got that first goal. It was 0-0 after the first but I think we dominated and then, in the second, we really dominated I think the shots were like 15-2 in our favour and it was 3-0 and the game was in hand."

Nottingham Panthers looked like causing an upset in the other semi-final, racing into a 3-1 lead on the night to give themselves an 8-6 aggregate lead going into the final period.

But Cardiff hit three goals in just over four minutes to ensure they would be the ones lining up against the Steelers at the Viola Arena on Sunday, March 8 in a rematch of the 2015 and 2017 finals which both ended in the Devils’ favour.