Steelers suffer costly blow at hands of Blaze

Sheffield Steelers' Mike Forney - scored twice at Coventry Blaze, but it couldn't prevent a 5-3 defeat at the Skydome Arena. Picture: Dean Woolley.

Such are the repercussions of last night’s 5-3 defeat at a resurgent Coventry Blaze, who scored three unanswered third period goals to leave Steelers five points behind leaders Braehead Clan, who enjoyed a straightforward 5-2 win at home to Scottish rivals Fife Flyers.

Former Steelers head coach Ryan Finnerty – fired in April 2013 after two barren seasons – leads his Clan roster into Ice Sheffield on Wednesday night knowing a win would almost certainly end the hosts’ interest in the title.

Already crowned Gardiner Conference champions for the second time in three years, success in South Yorkshire would take the Glasgow club a step closer to adding a first-ever league championship to their honours board.

After a resounding 9-2 win at Hull Stingrays on Saturday – courtesy of goals from Colton Fretter (2), Mathieu Roy (2), Ben O’Connor (2), Jeff Legue, Mike Forney and Tyler Mosienko – the Steelers headed into Coventry last night rightly confident of avenging a 2-1 defeat at the hands of their hosts a week earlier at the Motorpoint Arena.

It looked to be going that way when, after two periods, they went in 3-2 ahead courtesy of goals from Forney (2) and Mosienko.

Things remained that way until the last 10 minutes when Blaze hit back with a vengeance – Steven Chalmers, Derek Lee and Jereme Tendler all firing past Josh Unice to extend their team’s winning streak in the league to five games.

Hull left it late to salvage something from their weekend after it looked likely they would finish with nothing to show from three games in as many nights.

They had gone into Saturday’s home humbling by the Steelers on the back of a 3-2 defeat to Belfast Giants on Friday and, with less than two minutes remaining, were 3-2 down at home to Dundee Stars last night.

But Dominic Osman struck at 58.29 on the powerplay to level for the home side, which led to a goalless overtime period and then a shoot-out, which they won courtesy of Jordan Mayer’s sudden death winner.

Hull had gone in 2-1 down at the end of the first, Cory Tanaka’s powerplay strike sandwiched in-between goals from Dundee’s Brad Plumton and John Dolan

A second from Dolan made it 3-1 at 38.45, but Will Frederick made it a one-goal game again with just over 10 minutes left before Osman’s late leveller.