Spirited effort earns under-strength Blaze a point
A hard-working display on Sunday night in the Skydome saw the Coventry Blaze defeated in overtime 4-3 by the Sheffield Steelers. Short on bodies, the Blaze were missing Jerramie Domish, Russ Cowley and Gerome Giudice through injury and Mike Danton was still unavailable due to the lack of a visa. Dale White and Matt Selby again guested from the NIHL Blaze, James Preece played from Telford Tigers and James Pease was also drafted in to fill a few shifts on defense. Benn Olson was moved up front to complete the re-working of the roster.
Sheffield were also suffering, but to a lesser extent as they were missing Cory Pecker. Despite the short bench, Coventry started brightly and opened the scoring at 3.57 with Greg Leeb firing home from Benn Olson and James Griffin. Ashley Tait levelled for Sheffield midway through the first before Mike Schutte put the Blaze back in the lead with an excellent coast-to-coast effort, both on the powerplay. A pulsating first period was brought to a close with Drew Fata scoring an excellent seeing eye shot, again on the man advantage, leaving the scores tied at 2 each.
Another powerplay goal from the Steelers came at 23.56; Jeff Legue blasted a superb shot from the point. Legue would continue to be the story of the second period as he was ejected for high sticking Olson. In a bizarre turn of events, Olson was also ejected for high sticking, but it remains to be seen what offence he actually committed. Sensing an injustice, the Blaze were spurred on and White scored his first ever goal for the club, being in the right place at the right time to profit from a Brad Leeb pass.
No goals were scored in the third period, largely due to some great netminding from Blaze keeper Peter Hirsch. Sheffield had the upper hand in the third as the Blaze started to run out of legs. There was some fight left in the team as Shea Guthrie and Matt Selby got fighting majors for a scrum also involving Lee Esders and Rod Sarich. Sarich in particular seemed to be aggrieved that Selby, who wears a face cage due to being under 18, would get involved in the melee. Selby politely informed him that he would remove the cage and drop the gloves quite willingly, given the chance.
With the scores tied after regulation, overtime came and Colin Shields popped up with the game winner after a scramble in the Blaze zone. Coventry looked exhausted in the handshakes but gave an impressive performance, pushing one of the league favourites past the final whistle. This is not good news for Sheffield who at nearly full strength were hard pushed at the weekend by a weakened side containing six players aged 20 or under. Conversely, the Blaze can be more than confident that they will compete with any side in the Elite League when they are fully fit.
