Sheffield Steelers rain down on Manchester Storm to the delight of coach Aaron Fox

Both sides went into the tie at the top of the Elite League standings after strong starts to the 2023-24 campaign, but it was Group C points that were on offer at the Utilia Arena.

And when Manchester went ahead through Andreas Heier two minutes into the second period, it looked like it could potentially be an uphill struggle for Fox’s side.

Indeed, it took them until 16 seconds to go until the end of the period for captain Robert Dowd to backhand a loose puck home to level the scores.

From then on Sheffield took charge in a rampant third period.

Brett Neumann edged them ahead at 43.50 before Josh Nicholls stretched the advantage midway through the final stanza.

From there the floodgates opened, Mitchell Balmas scoring the fourth with a slap shot, Scott Allen added a fifth and Kevin Tansey a sixth. Marco Vallerand had three assists.

"We played 60 minutes of very good hockey tonight,” said Steelers’ head coach Fox. “I didn't like our first two shifts but, after that, I really didn’t think we were going to lose that hockey game at any time.

"I didn’t think we deserved to be 1-0 down but the boys stuck with it, we didn’t change our game-plan whatsoever we knew that we just needed to get that first goal and we knew we could put that team under pressure and we did – so it was a really good 60 minutes for us.

“The guys played great, we had six different scorers tonight and everyone is chipping in.”