Steelers in 11th heaven

Wednesday night’s result at Hull Arena means Steelers are firmly in the driving seat to land a third Elite League title with just 12 games remaining.

The Cardiff Devils remain the most serious threat to Steelers’ title hopes, currently lying second but with two games in hand. The two meet in a double-header on February 19-20.

Against a short-benched Stingrays, who were missing defencemen Drew Bannister (knee), Aivars Gaisons (work commitments) and Craig Mitchell (shoulder), along with forwards Lee Esders (shoulder) and Lee Mitchell (knee), a full-strength Steelers edged the early exchanges at Hull Arena and went ahead at 4.33 through Tom Squires, who was on hand to convert a Jeff Legue breakaway.

The visitors – playing their fifth game in eight days - doubled their advantage almost four minutes later when Legue found space at the back post on the powerplay.

But while the Steelers have enjoyed a comfortable time against the Stingrays on home ice this season, they have always found it tough in Hull’s barn, losing 7-2 there in November before edging a seven-goal thriller almost two weeks ago.

And it was to prove another awkward night in East Yorkshire for player-coach Ben Simon’s team, who were given a timely reminder of the threat posed by their hosts when Andrew Coburn halved the deficit within a minute of Legue’s strike.

But the Steelers soon restored their two-goal advantage when Ashley Tait made the most of a Kurtis Dulle slip in the neutral zone to break down ice quickly before firing the puck high past Christian Boucher at 13.28.

One again, however, Hull hauled themselves back into the game before the end of the first with two goals in the space of 11 seconds. The first came at 16.54 when penalties to Hull’s Ryan Lake and Steelers’ Jason Hewitt produced a face-off near the visitors’ goal. Player-coach Sylvain Cloutier won the drop to set up top scorer Jereme Tendler to fire home past Steelers’ reserve netminder Geoff Woolhouse, who started the match due to No1 goaltdner Ervins Mustukovs being called up for Latvia.

It was a case of role reversal for Hull’s equaliser when, on a delayed penalty call, Tendler found Cloutier all alone in front of the Steelers’ goal to fire into the roof of the net.

While Steelers’ forward Neil Clark was handed a 10-minute misconduct penalty when tempers frayed on both sides at the first period buzzer, it was the Stingrays who ran into penalty trouble early in the second.

First Ryan Lake (kneeing) and Jason Silverthorn (interference) went to the box before being joined by Dulle who was called for slashing and then handed an additional 10-minute misconduct call for abuse of an official.

No sooner had the home side comfortably seen off 90 seconds of a 5-on-3 Steelers powerplay, when Cloutier returned to the box for an elbowing call, leaving his players to see off another Steelers powerplay.

But Hull emerged intact from their penalty strife and it was while Steelers suffered some penalty trouble of their own later in the period that Hull were able to take the lead for the first time when Tendler tipped in a Trevor Read slapshot on the powerplay at 35.49.

But just as the home supporters began to dream of a second win on home ice over the title favourites, a determined drive to the net from the impressive Derek Campbell saw him escape the attentions of Jozef Sladok to fire home and level at 37.27.

Clark then made amends for his earlier midemeanours when he jabbed home Legue’s pass to see the visitors go in at the break 5-4 ahead.

With Sladok on the sidelines for a hooking call picked up late in the second, Rod Sarich then gave the Steelers a two-goal cushion with only 23 seconds on the clock at the start of the third.

As Stingrays pushed for a way back into the game, they were given hope on the powerplay, but a wayward pass let in Legue who broke from the Steelers’ blue line at pace before teeing up Joey Talbot for his team’s seventh of the night.

Dulle dragged the home side back to within two goals with a little over seven minutes left on the clock, but the Steelers’ strength in depth showed in the end as they were able to repel all of Hull’s advances to make it 4-1 in the six-game head-to-head series between the two teams this season.