Sheffield Steelers coach Aaron Fox keen to remain in control of own destiny in remainder of EIHL title race

The Steelers are expecting an 8,000-plus crowd for tonight’s home clash with Nottingham Panthers, as they look to close the gap on currrent leaders Belfast, who are four points ahead having played two games more.

The contest for the regular season championship is now officially a two-horse one after Belfast’s 5-1 win at home to Glasgow Clan last night meant third-placed Cardiff Devils can no longer mathematically catch them, despite their own impressive 7-1 win against visitors Dundee Stars.

The Steelers have three of their remaining seven games to come against Belfast, who are not in action again until tomorrow night when they play host to Guildford Flames.

Fox’s team head across the Pennines tomorrow night for a third meeting in eight days with play-off chasing Manchester Storm, the two meeting yet again in Sheffield on Wednesday.

Head coach Fox said the race for the title remained in his team’s own hands and hopes that when it comes to the Steelers facing off against Belfast in three of their last four games, everything will still be on the line.

“We just need to stay in this race,” said Fox, whose team kept up the pressure on Belfast with a 3-0 win at Manchester on Wednesday night. “There are seven games to play now and we get Belfast three times in the last four. So we’ve got to make sure we control our own destiny and don’t need any help from the outside. As long as we take care of our own business we have a good chance of this.

“I’m hoping that this title race is going to come down to those four games. I don’t think they are going to have a huge slip-up here before those last four games of ours.

“From a league perspective you couldn’t ask for a better situation if the last two weeks we get Belfast three out of four and it still matters. That would be pretty entertaining and would be good for the league. Hopefully when we play them we’ll be healthy and have a full team but, for now, we don’t want to look too far ahead as we have some big games before them.”