Steelers primed for league run, believes Legue

The South Yorkshire club have endured a frustrating start to the 2013-14 campaign, with five of their opening 10 games – seven of which have been in the Challenge Cup – ending in defeat.

Saturday night’s 3-2 come-from-behind win in overtime over Coventry Blaze – courtesy of Legue’s two third-period powerplay goals and captain Steve Goertzen’s decider – has virtually assured Steelers of progressing from Group B.

But the arrival of Dundee Stars to Ice Sheffield on Wednesday heralds the start of a sustained spell of league action, with the Steelers facing 16 league games before their final Cup group game at Hull Stingrays on November 30.

“We finally put a 60-minute game together,” said Legue.

“Going into the league games, it just gives us that little bit of momentum. We have played good before, but we’ve not put together 60 minutes together and against Coventry we put 60 together.”

The Elite League are to investigate an off-ice incident involving Hull’s Derek Campbell’s following Saturday night’s 2-1 league defeat to Gardiner Conference rivals Dundee Stars.

Campbell had been ejected from the game in the 55th minute for excessive roughness meaning he missed last night’s return match on Tayside when Hull again came off second-best in a 3-2 defeat.

But a separate incident following the home defeat has been referred to the league’s disciplinary committee who are to investigate the matter further.

Jereme Tendler’s 43rd-minute powerplay strike halved the deficit on Saturday, but earlier goals from Dundee’s Jerry Pollastrone and Brock McPherson were enough for both points.

Tendler was again on target in Dundee last night but, despite a second third-period goal from Jamie Chilcott, Hull left themselves with too much to do after Dundee had earlier raced into a 3-0 lead with goals from McPherson, Marcis Zembergs and Nico Sacchetti.

Player-coach Sylvain Cloutier said: “It’s getting like last season again – we are making a habit of losing one-goal games. We need to start finding ways to win these games.”

Belfast Giants enjoyed a 4-1 win over Cardiff Devils. David Clarke, Bob Wren, Robert Lachowicz and Matt Ryan were all on target as Nottingham ran out 4-2 winners over Brahead Clan.