Sheffield Steelers coach Aaron Fox backs players despite poor return in Belfast Giants double-header

SHEFFIELD STEELERS’ head coach Aaron Fox refused to rule out his team’s Elite League title chances, despite enduring frustration on their double-header weekend against rivals Belfast Giants.

The Steelers emerged from their trip to Northern Ireland with just one point, in Saturday night’s 1-0 loss after a shoot-out to Adam Keefe’s team, having lost 5-3 the previous evening.

It meant the Giants drew level on points with the Steelers, who dropped a place in the standings to third after Cardiff Devils moved two points clear into second as they enjoyed a maximum return with wins over Fife Flyers and Dundee Stars.

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With 18 regular season games remaining, leaders Guildford Flames are now six points clear of the Steelers having backed up Friday night’s 5-1 win at Glasgow Clan with a 4-3 home win over Coventry Blaze.

HIGH STAKES: Belfast Giants’ Ben Lake battles with Sheffield Steelers’ Robert Dowd (right) during Saturday’s Elite Ice Hockey League game at the SSE Arena Picture courtesy of William Cherry/Presseye/EIHL.HIGH STAKES: Belfast Giants’ Ben Lake battles with Sheffield Steelers’ Robert Dowd (right) during Saturday’s Elite Ice Hockey League game at the SSE Arena Picture courtesy of William Cherry/Presseye/EIHL.
HIGH STAKES: Belfast Giants’ Ben Lake battles with Sheffield Steelers’ Robert Dowd (right) during Saturday’s Elite Ice Hockey League game at the SSE Arena Picture courtesy of William Cherry/Presseye/EIHL.

“As a coach, it sounds cliched but you are always going to look for positives each and every night,” said Fox. “Our heart, our compete and our effort was 100 per cent fully committed on both nights and I’m disappointed that we weren’t ablt to find the win column on either night but we’ll hopefully build off that.”

“It was an outstanding 60-minute hockey game from both teams and definitely had like a game-seven, play-off mentality to it, nobody was going to budge.”

There aren’t too many hockey games that go 65 minutes without a single goal, but it was testament to the quality on offer from both teams that a shootout was eventually required.

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The Steelers generated the better chances in the additional spell of 3-on-3, with Matt Petgrave and Martin Latal going close to securing the extra point on offer.

But five rounds of penalty shots were to follow.

The Giants got 2-0 ahead through Ben Lake and Scott Conway by round three and although Brendan Connolly pulled one back for the visitors, they couldn’t overturn the deficit.