Sheffield Steelers looking to produce quick Elite League response after home ice setback
SHEFFIELD STEELERS had already been knocked off the top of the Elite League standings before they took to the ice against Cardiff Devils on Sunday.
They dropped another place after their encounter with their South Wales rivals, whose 4-0 road win made it a pleasing night for former Steelers’ head coach, Paul Thompson - making his first return in a competitive capacity to the Utilita Arena.
For Thompson’s coaching rival Aaron Fox, it was a night to forget, something he and his players will be able to do quickly given they host Guildford Flames on Wednesday night.
The Devils came into Sheffield already buoyed by their 5-3 win over defending champions Belfast Giants on Friday night and also nicely rested given the night off heading north.
The Steelers will have been even fresher, given they only had a one-game weekend but they were up against it from the off after the Devils took a 2-0 lead inside four minutes.
Cardiff took advantage of an early Steelers turnover at the blue line when former player Evan Mosey sent Josh MacDonald clean through down the middle before he beat Matt Greenfield low down to his right at 2.21.
Barely a minute had passed before the Devils doubled their advantage through Ryan Barrow’s redirect off Brandon Estes.
The Steelers huffed and puffed but couldn’t find a way back into the game, their hopes taking a further knock when they went further behind at 33.04 when Kristoff Kontos’ skate diverted the puck past a helpless Greenfield.
Less than 90 seconds later, Steven MacLean won the puck inside the right circle and fired home for his first goal as a Devil.
Verdict of Steelers’ coach Aaron Fox
“I knew it was going to be a tough ask not having any fourth line minutes tonight - I know we’re not playing those guys a ton right now, but even five-six minutes would have been helpful at times after power play and penalty kill situations
“I think they would have got here for the second period at best and the league had told us that if they are not here by puck drop then they can’t dress, so they kind of took that out of our hands but, at the end of the day, we just weren’t good enough.
“It’s one game out of 54 we’re not going to overthink it. We’ll do a game review on Cardiff on Tuesday and look at some of the things we didn’t do good enough and some things that we can improve on.
“It’s obviously a quick turnaround here which is quite good for our group not having a long week with the midweek game against Guildford.”
Verdict of Devils’ head coach, Paul Thompson
“Obviously we have a plan for every game but we had a plan to try and nullify the speed with which Sheffield play and that is credit to the boys and when we got our chances and our looks we took them. I thought it was a real, real strong road game.
“Goals, before this weekend, have been tough to come by but I feel that McDonald is going now, Sandford is going now and they are two big offensive weapons and we’ve had support from the secondary scoring all year so it’s a good weekend, very pleased.”
Who’s next
Weds, Nov 12: Sheffield Steelers v Guildford Flames (7.30pm).