Positive start gives Phillips good feeling

THiS season may not quite have produced the best start for Sheffield Steelers during Jonathan Phillips’s nine years at the club, but he believes the omens for success are good.
POSITIVE: Sheffield Steelers' captain Jonathan Phillips. Picture Dean Woolley.POSITIVE: Sheffield Steelers' captain Jonathan Phillips. Picture Dean Woolley.
POSITIVE: Sheffield Steelers' captain Jonathan Phillips. Picture Dean Woolley.

Steelers head into their weekend away in Scotland with visits to Edinburgh Capitals and Dundee Stars with seven wins and one loss from their first eight games in the Elite League.

It has only been bettered by the 8-0 start enjoyed in the championship-winning season under Ben Simon in 2010-11.

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The impressive performances allied to the positive results under head coach Gerad Adams have led to some early predictions that this current Steelers roster can go on and replicate that triumph of four years ago.

And while captain Phillips admits there is a confident air about the Steelers’ squad, there is no danger of them taking anything for granted.

“The best way to put it, I guess, is that we’re enjoying our hockey right now,” said Phillips, who moved to Steelers from Cardiff Devils in the summer of 2006.

“It’s still early days right now and we’re not taking anything for granted – but it is certainly one of the better starts we’ve had since I’ve been here.

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“This team strikes me as having the hallmarks of one that can achieve a lot this season, although this club always puts together a team capable of winning trophies.”

With Edinburgh and Dundee occupying the bottom two positions in the overall league standings, it should be a straightforward weekend for Adams’s team, on paper, although Phillips is not convinced.

“Edinburgh are always dangerous and you know they can transition quickly and go down the other end and score,” he added.

“Dundee won their Conference last season and I’m sure they will turn things around very quickly.”