Steelers and Stingrays taught harsh lessons

Dave Matsos's league and play-off champions have endured a torrid campaign, made worse by seven defeats in as many games to title hopefuls Panthers ahead of Saturday night's meeting at Sheffield Arena where goals from Jonathan Zion (2), Joe Talbot (2), Jason Hewitt and Mike Sgroi ended the long wait for success in a 6-4 victory.

But the amount of work required by Steelers to stand any chance of retaining their play-off trophy in April - their only hope of silverware - was emphasised clearly on Sunday when they went down 5-1 at league title favourites Coventry Blaze.

Goals from Luke Fulghum, Grego Owen (2), Derek Campbell and Tom Watkins were on target for Blaze with Talbot replying for Steelers.

It proved to be a weekend to forget for Hull Stingrays in their double-header with fourth-placed Cardiff Devils – the side they are most likely to face in the play-offs.

A narrow 3-2 defeat on home ice on Saturday night would have been hard enough for player-coach Sylvain Cloutier to take – particularly given the costly ill-discipline displayed by his players.

But the costly penalties continued to pile up in the return match at Cardiff Bay Arena on Sunday, leading to a 7-0 loss – the fourth time Stingrays have been shutout this season to leave them rooted to the foot of the table, nine points adrift of seventh-placed Newcastle Vipers with 13 games remaining.

Curtis Huppe opened the scoring for Stingrays on Saturday but that was quickly cancelled out by Max Birbraer.

Matt Miller and Ben Davies stretched Devils' lead before Jason Silverthorn reduced the deficit.