Steelers the hunted after going top

For so long hunting down other teams throughout the season, the Steelers now become the hunted with only 13 games remaining.

Joey Talbot was the only player to find the net in a shoot-out against the Coventry Blaze on Saturday night, the 3-2 victory proving to be enough to see the Steelers replace the Cardiff Devils at the top of the standings after the South Wales club suffered a surprise 4-0 defeat at third-placed Belfast Giants.

Steelers extended their advantage to three points over their South Wales rivals with a 4-1 victory at Coventry last night, although the Devils do now have a game in hand.

The maximum four-point haul from the weekend made it four wins in five days for the full-strength Steelers, following Wednesday night’s 3-0 victory over the Hull Stingrays and Friday night’s 6-1 demolition of arch-rivals Nottingham Panthers in front of the live TV cameras.

Belfast’s victory closed the gap between them and Cardiff to three points, although they have played a game more than Gerad Adams’s team

With Nottingham enduring a dreadful weekend – following up their defeat in Sheffield with a 6-5 defeat at second-bottom Newcastle Vipers last night – it effectively means there is now a three-horse race for the title.

A delighted Simon, pictured below, said his players were well aware that they were now the team to beat.

“Now that we are top, everybody is going to be coming for us and raising their game,” said Simon.

“We have to be prepared for that and I know we will be. We talked the other day about the fact that we just have to keep doing what we have been.

“That seems to have worked to get us where we now are and we need to maintain the same approach to stay where we are.

“It’s been a tough schedule over the past few days and I’m proud of the way my guys have come through it.

“It says a lot about the character we have in our locker room that we have been able to win all four games – and they’ve all been against tough opposition.

“I can’t really single out any one individual over the last few days, everybody is buying into what we’re doing and contributing.”

Last night, Ashley Tait put Steelers into the lead against his former club with a 12th-minute powerplay strike, before Neil Clark doubled the lead at the halfway point.

Steelers increased their advantage to 4-0 with third-period strikes from Robert Dowd and a second for Tait, before Luke Fulghum grabbed a consolation for the hosts.

Simon gave his team a 22nd-minute lead at the Motorpoint Arena on Saturday before Fulghum levelled.

Coventry looked to have won it when Dan Carlson netted with only 79 seconds left on the clock, but former Blaze winger Derek Campbell popped up to equalise with 54 seconds remaining to send the game into overtime, after which Talbot scored the crucial goal in the shoot-out.

Hull Stingrays snapped a five-game losing streak by taking four points from their games against rock-bottom Edinburgh Capitals.

Goals from Matti Uusivirta (2) Jereme Tendler, Ryan Lake, Ben Lowe and Andrew Coburn sealed a 6-3 win at Murrayfield, before the Stingrays returned to home ice last night for a comprehensive 9-2 triumph, thanks to hat-tricks from Tendler and Konstantin Kalmikov.

Two wins for sixth-placed Braehead Clan, however, means Hull remain eight points adrift of their Scottish rivals, albeit with four games in hand.

Player-coach Sylvain Cloutier said: “We needed those four points this weekend.

“We got a big road win in Edinburgh in what is a tough place to play, but we did not play our best at home, we took it too easy.”