Sheffield Steelers left with no wiggle room in bid to retain Elite League crown

There is still one meeting to come between the two Elite League rivals - when Belfast visit South Yorkshire in two weeks’ time.

But victory at the Utilita Arena that night alone will not be enough to make a difference, with Adam Keeffe’s team currently nine points ahead, albeit having played a game more.

The weekend after sees second-placed Cardiff Devils in Belfast for a double-header weekend - there is also another meeting between the two in South Wales on March 21 - while Nottingham Panthers, currently ahead of the Steelers in third by one point, are scheduled to host the Giants twice on the final weekend of the regular season.

It is a far from easy run-in for the leaders and the Steelers will be hoping the Giants suffer a similar lapse in form to the two four-match losing streaks they have succumbed to themselves this season, form which has left them in the chasing pack with Cardiff and Nottingham.

Ahead of tonight’s tricky trip to Glasgow Clan and tomorrow’s visit from Cardiff, Steelers’ head coach Fox was determined not to look too far ahead, particularly with 22 games still remaining.

“All losses are costly, the timing of them is never great,” said Fox. “We have 22 games left - we’re nine and two in our last 11 games and I don’t think we’ve made up any ground on Belfast during that time.

“So if you look at it that way, Belfast is playing some pretty good hockey right now and we’re going to need to beat them the next time we play them, as well as them losing some points along the way here too and us making sure we play really good hockey.

“But with this amount of games left, anything can still happen - all it takes is a tough couple of weeks for a team. We’ve just got to hunker down and make sure we keep picking up the points on as many nights as we can and hopefully give ourselves a chance to close that gap.

“We came out of the Champions League and had a tough stretch. Those are the stretches that can really hurt you and that stretch right there alone has put us in a really, really tough spot.”

On tonight’s trip to Glasgow, Fox added: “It’s not an easy place to go and play. They were the better team last time, even though we won. We got off to a good start but they were pushing us throughout and we needed and got some good goaltending that night.”