Sheffield Steelers stumble and cede title ground to Elite League rivals

The Steelers had beaten their Surrey rivals convincingly on home ice at the start of the month but, despite twice taking the lead at The Spectrum on Sunday night, came off second-best in a 6-2 loss.

With leaders Belfast Giants beating second-placed Cardiff Devils 4-1, the Steelers now trail the Adam Keeffe’s team by nine points with a game in hand. A win for Nottingham Panthers over Manchester Storm saw them swap places with the Steelers and move into third place.

There are 22 games remaining between now and early April.

“That was a disappointing result,” said Steelers’ head coach, Aaron Fox. “I actually liked our first 20-25 minutes, I thought we played a really smart first period.

“We got the lead and then we don’t take a very smart penalty early in the second to give them some life, they score on the power play and we bounce back quick and then from that point on I felt like they won a lot of races, they won the hard areas of the ice.

“Four of their five goals were tipped or deflected at the net and they got pucks to the point and got 2-3 guys to the net and tipped a couple of pucks and got rewarded

“I didn’t mind our push, we created some offence late and just couldn’t find a way back into that hockey game but that middle period really hurt us and we couldn’t come back from it.”

The Steelers broke the deadlock in the 12th minute on nthe power play when Marc-Olivier Vallerand switched play from left to right to allow Maxim Gold to fire home from the right circle.

Guildford replied with a power play strike of their own from Travis Brown’s defelction at 24.23 but the Steelers forged ahead again less than two minutes later, another play on the man advantage that saw Mikko Juusola poke the puck through netminder Jake Kupsky’s legs.

But the hosts rallied and established a stranglehold on the game with three goals in five minutes before the second intermission.

Matt Alvaro tipped past Greenfield at 31.32 to tie the game again before Daniel Tedesco put the Flames ahead for the first time on the night from close range just 24 seconds later.

As the Steelers tried to gather themselves, a deflected pass set up Alvaro for a quick finish to make it 4-2 at 36.02.

The Steelers chased hard for a way back - out-shooting their host more than 2-to-1 in the third period - but could not find the goal they craved.

They fell further behind when Alvaro sealed his hat-trick in the 57th minute before Daniel Catenacci added an empty-netter with 18 seconds remaining.