EIHL Game Report: Sheffield Steelers 3 Coventry Blaze 2 (OT)
Late goals from two of the more seasoned faces of the Sheffield Steelers’ roster lifted the South Yorkshire side past the stubborn Coventry Blaze in a Challenge Cup game on Saturday night. Third period and overtime goals from Jeff Legue and captain Steven Goertzen completed an impressive comeback for Sheffield, giving Head Coach Doug Christiansen his first win in four attempts in the Steelers’ Motorpoint Arena.
Christiansen praised the good practices of his team post game, saying; ‘any team can win on any given night, it’s about the good habits you develop over the course of the season that pay dividends, that for me is the most important thing.’
Christiansen’s side were indeed impressive for all sixty-four minutes of the overtime win, despite going a goal behind midway through the first quarter. Former Steeler favourite Ashley Tait showed again what made him a hero on the Arena ice, cleverly feeding Adam Henrich who beat net minder Frank Doyle from fifteen feet.
From then on the Steelers came out fighting, peppering the Blaze net without ever beating Mike Zacharias in the goal. Stefan Meyer, Rylan Galiardi and Jason Hewitt all went close in the second period, on a night where the Steelers were without arguably their two biggest goal scoring threats in Maxime Lacroix and Robert Dowd.
The Steelers though still didn’t panic going into the third period a goal down, despite failing to capitalise on a five on three powerplay opportunity in the second. ‘We got to the third period still down a goal but we were confident because we were banging on the door again and again’ Christiansen said, ‘the second period five on three was frustrating, but the miscues we had were largely due to the fact that unit hasn’t had the chance to skate together.’ The lack of time together comes as the Steelers welcomed two home debutants to the Arena, with Chad Langlais returning from injury and Nate Dicasmirro starting for the first time having joined the team on Friday, slotting preliminarily into the powerplay unit.
The third period proved much more productive for the Steelers, with Jeff Legue giving them two clutch goals to turn the score line temporarily into their favour. First Legue hit a spectacular effort from range to beat Zacharias off the assist from Tim Spencer, who showed his quality as a skater as well as in being resident tough guy for Sheffield all night. From there the Steelers pressed and pressed as they had all night, with the impressive Langlais and Jonathan Phillips both going very close before the hosts finally capitalised on a second five on three powerplay opportunity. Langlais again was insatiable with the puck, feeding Legue out wide who made the most of his space to fire the Steelers ahead with nine minutes to play.
The Blaze though would not lie down, even after the dangerous Henrich was ejected in the aftermath of Legue’s go ahead goal. Coventry still had Ashley Tait, who, with an eye on upsetting his old team, hit a fine shot on the turn to beat Doyle after a bright spell of Blaze pressure to send the game into overtime.
From there however the Steelers rode the wave of home support, reasserting themselves as the dominant force on the ice, again piling on pressure until Coventry could hold on no more. Once more Langlais was involved, getting the puck to Goertzen after a scramble in front of the net before the captain made no mistake, scoring to end the sudden death and give the Steelers a very well deserved, albeit hard fought, Challenge Cup win.