Sheffield Steelers coach Aaron Fox proud after seeing team push Fribourg-Gotteron close in Champions Hockey League

THE GREAT LEVELLER: Mikko Juusola celebrates Sheffield Steelers third and equalising gola in Switzerland on Thursday night. Picture courtsy of CHL.

HAVING given one of Europe’s finest a massive scare on Thursday night, Sheffield Steelers can take plenty of confidence into today’s second tough Champions Hockey League test inside the space of three days.

The Elite League grand slam winners more than matched Switzerland’s Fribourg-Gotteron in front of more than 4,000 fans inside the BCF Arena, taking a 2-0 lead inside the first five minutes, only to eventually lose out 4-3.

It was a superb effort from Aaron Fox’s team, who spent Friday travelling north to Sweden where they will take on Växjö Lakers, 2018 runners-up in the CHL and four-time winners of the highly-regarded Swedish Hockey League (SHL), most recently last year.

British teams have regularly found life difficult competing in Europe’s premier club competition, only once breaking out of the group phase when Nottingham Panthers made the last 16 in 2017.

CLOSE RUN THING: Colton Saucerman, pictured on the Sheffield Steelers' bench during Thursdays CHL opener at Fribourg-Gotteron. Picture courtesy of CHL.

But the Steelers proved they can compete on Thursday night, leaving head coach Fox full of pride in his players ahead of their clash with the Lakers.

“There was a lot to be happy about in that hockey game,” said Fox. “We have talked about building an identity with this new group that we have right now. Obviously, we are not the same team as we were last year but I can already tell that some of our core values are being sucked into that room.

“So we’ll take a lot of positives out of that first game but we know it is not going to get any easier on Saturday.

“There’s a lot to be proud of in that group - just the compete level, the way they defended, how hard they defended, we created some offence and I thought there was a good part of that second period where we were actually taking it to them, where we were holding offensive zone time and forcing that team to make turnovers.

PROUD: Sheffield Steelers' head coach, Aaron Fox. Picture: Dean Woolley

“Us as a group we got better the longer the game went on, just building that core identity and you can tell we’ve got a group of guys in there who are willing to compete and battle.”

The game was only 76 seconds old when the Steelers broke the deadlock, Patrick Watling driving down the left on a 3-on-2 and firing past Reto Berra thanks to a Daniel Leavens screen.

Just three minutes later, Daniel Ciampini doubled the visitors’ lead, scoring off a rebound from a failed wrap-around attempt by Mark Simpson.

It was better than anyone in the Steelers’ camp could have hoped for and the home side were reeling.

But they soon responded, halving the deficit through a close-range redirect from Lucas Wallmark at 5.49 and then levelling just under two minutes later when Killian Mottet got the better of Matt Greenfield on a one-on-one.

Just over five minutes later the Steelers were trailing after the impressive Marcus Sörensen fired past Greenfield from just inside the right circle.

But the Steelers were not done and dragged themselves level in the 18th minute when Mikko Juusola forced the puck home in mid-air from the edge of the crease.

Nothing could separate the two teams in the second but less than a minute into the third the hosts regained the lead, Mottet firing home a second from the right circle, for what proved to be the winning strike.