Sheffield Steelers 5 Fife Flyers 1: Robert Dowd double helps secure healthy first leg lead

The 2020 Challenge Cup winners defeated Fife Flyers 5-1 and although much can change between now and the second leg in Scotland, Steelers can feel confident of progression.

It wasn’t all plain sailing for Sheffield, though, through two periods they only had a 1-0 lead courtesy of Robert Dowd’s powerplay goal to show for their efforts against a resilient Fife team.

But once Matias Sointu tapped in the second goal eight minutes into the final period the floodgates opened.

Evan Mosey added a third from close range after battling his way through to the net before Michael McNicholas pulled a goal back for the Flyers at 53.56 with a tap-in from close range after the puck had been deflected into his path.

But Dowd pressured Fife D-man Jonas Emmerdahl into a mistake just inside the visitors’ zone before pulling clear to fire past Shane Owen from eight yards with 55.13 on the clock. Just 14 seconds later, Owen did well to parry Mosey’s on-rushing attempt from the right circle, but the puck fell kindly for the hosts this time, Vojtech Polak reacting quickly to fire home the rebound to give the Steelers a significant advantage when they head to Kirkcaldy for the return leg next Wednesday.

“I’m very pleased with that result,” said Steelers’ head coach Aaron Fox. “Going up there next week with a four-goal lead makes it a clear result for us here.

“But they played extremely hard, they blocked an absolute ton of shots - I think we had something like 30 shots in the first and only 13 or 14 of them got through because they were just throwing their body in front of everything.

“We really tried to hammer home that every goal matters in the competition because of the aggregate format. It is a 120-minute game and, right now, being up four with 60 minutes left is a good start.”