AARON FOX admitted this weekend will be more of a grind than usual for his Sheffield Steelers’ team, given the absence of four players due to their commitments with Great Britain at the Olympic Qualifiers in Cardiff.

Rob Dowd - named as the successor to Steelers’ legend Jonathan Phillips as GB captain ahead of Thursday’s opening win against China - is joined by defenceman Sam Jones and forwards Cole Shudra and Brandon Whistle in South Wales.

It leaves Fox with a big hole to fill, a situation not helped any further by the fact Brett Neumann is a continued absence with an upper-body injury.

Rest assured there will be no shortage of ice time for those remaining Steelers’ players, with Fox resorting to three-line hockey against, first, Manchester Storm on home ice on Saturday night before a trip to the SkyDome Arena on Sunday to take on a Coventry Blaze team no doubt hell-bent on revenge following their Challenge Cup semi-final humiliation at the hands of the Elite League leaders.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: New import forward Patrick Harper will have the chance of more ice time as Sheffield Steelers make do without their GB players. Picture: Dean Woolley.

“We’re very thin this weekend, no doubt,” said Fox. “We’re obviously talking about three-line hockey and that’s the way it’ll have to be.

“We’ve done it before when we had a few injuries at the start of last month. With a midweek game (to follow, next week against Guildford Flames) it’s not optimal to be going three-lines and five D or 10 forwards and 6 D - that’s not an optimal way to operate but it is what it is.

“We’ve got confidence in the guys we’ve got and we’ve had a good week in order to make sure we grind out a couple of wins against two teams.”

Fox said the addition of defenceman Sam Cooper to the ranks was an option this weekend, the 19-year-old having made his Steelers bow in the second leg of the semi-final win over the Blaze 10 days ago.

Another player who Fox will be keen to come to the fore will be recent import addition, Patrick Harper, who joined as injury cover for Neumann and now has three games under his belt.

“He’s settling in here, game by game,” said Fox. “He’s getting his hockey game-shape back again and it will have been good for him to have another full week of practice with us.

“There should be plenty of ice on the weekend and I’ll have a chance to move him up and mix him in with a couple of guys, too and see how he responds.”

Sheffield Steelers - Opportunity knocks for Steelers to log extra ice time