Sheffield Steelers coach Aaron Fox facing 'hard decisions' over 2025-26 Elite League roster

A play-off semi-final defeat to eventual winners Nottingham Panthers ensured that the Steelers would end their 2024-25 campaign empty-handed - a total contrast to the previous year when they won the league, Challenge Cup and play-off treble.

There will be no wholesale overhaul of the team, says Fox, with this summer bringing more tweaks and minor adjustments as the South Yorkshire club look to return to winning ways in 2025-26.

Thursday morning saw the Steelers confirm that captain Robert Dowd plus defencemen Kevin Tansey and Reece Kelly will indeed return as contracted for next season.

More announcements about players returning are expected in the coming days, while new faces will emerge over the coming weeks, with Fox already sure to have made some moves in the market already.

“We’ll make a few little tweaks and adjustments there,” said the Steelers head coach and GM. “There will be some changes, some players may have other aspirations, some players you may feel like they don’t fit the league any more.

“So there are going to be some hard decisions to make and there are a lot of good people in that room and, as a result of that, this is sometimes the hardest part of the year.

“Once you put the coaching to one side and flip over to the GM side of the job and the roster construction and what’s going to be available, what the market is going to look like - all that kind of stuff will now come to the forefront.”

Despite missing out on all three trophies, Fox felt his team were only denied success by the kind of fine margins that went their way last season.

“A lot needs to go right for you to have the type of success that we had last year,” added Fox. “I thought we put ourselves into some great positions to win trophies this year, but we fell just short.

“So you look back at the year as a whole and I felt we played some pretty good hockey for the majority of the year. There’s always going to be some games you wish you could probably have back - but I’m proud of how our group competed and dealt with stuff.”