Sheffield Steelers: What Aaron Fox thought of opening weekend against Cardiff Devils and Guildford Flames
AARON FOX hailed the “character” of his Sheffield Steelers team after they came from behind to earn a point in their Challenge Cup clash at Cardiff Devils.
With 28 minutes gone, the Steelers found themselves trailing 2-0 at the Vndico Arena but clawed their way back, first through a powerplay strike from Dominic Cormier shortly before the halfway mark before Mitcehll Balmas levelled just 43 seconds into the third.
Chances came and went at both ends before the game went into overtime with the Steelers on a penalty kill.
It looked like they had killed the penalty off but, just as Robert Dowd came out of the box to end his time there for a hooking call, Brandon Estes blasted a one-timer past Eamon McAdam in the Steelers goal.
It was tough on the Steelers but still represented a three-point weekend for them, on the back of Saturday night’s 5-2 home win over Guildford Flames.
“After they went 2-0 up, I thought our group showed a ton of character during the last 30 minutes of that game and I felt we slanted the ice in our favour,” said Steelers’ head coach Fox.
“We hit a couple of crossbars late and we were unfortunate there to give one up. I thought our penalty kill was outstanding and special teams was good from both teams.
“It was a good 60 and I’m happy that we were able to claw back and get a point after being down 2-0 - this is never an easy barn to come into.
“Cardiff played hard and I felt like we matched that at the back end of that game and got into how we want to play. we just weren’t there for 60.
“But it’s early doors here, we’ll learn from it and get better.”
After the win over Guildford, 24 hours earlier, Fox said he was pleased with what he had seen from his players in their first competitive outing of the season.
"There were no passengers andd you could tell that theya re starting to figure out the systems a little bit more,” said Fox.
"There have been a lot of new faces so there’s still going to be a bit of time that this takes but I really liked our effort from everyone.”
Hull Seahawks completed their pre-season programme with back-to-back wins on home ice over NIHL National rivals Solway Sharks.
Bobby Chamberlain – back from injury – got the scoring underway on Saturday before Jason Hewitt, Jordan Stallard, Emil Svec and Caly Robertson also found the net in a 5-2 victory.
Stallard and Lee Bonner both scored twice in Sunday’s 9-3 win, with Chamberlain, Svec, Johnny Corneil, Theo Malone, Noah Kääriäinen also getting on the scoresheet.