Ice hockey: ‘Hell of a run’ ends for Sheffield Steelers at Cardiff Devils, but ‘we’ll start again on Saturday’ says coach Aaron Fox

Thursday night’s 3-1 defeat at Cardiff Devils may have amounted to something of a slow puncture to their championship ambitions.

But Sheffield coach Aaron Fox believes the disappointing scoreline – enhanced by an empty net goal – should be seen in context after a huge winning streak.

“It wasn’t our best 60 and certainly Cardiff were the better team for two periods,” he acknowledged.

“I liked our push-back in third and we created enough chances to take something out of the game.

“We had a couple of uncharacteristic turnovers but we also missed a couple of gilt-edged chances.”

The coach said he’d never expected his team to win every game but it had been “a hell of a run” of 11 straight victories and “we’ll start again on Saturday.”

The well-drilled Devils had focused on neutralising Steelers’ speed.

And the Welsh team-defence managed that while their offence banged in 14 more shots on goal than Sheffield could manage.

Brodie Dupont, the Cardiff coach, later implied they had studied a “tendency” of Sheffield’s in terms of exiting their own zone – and “took advantage of it”.

He said: “We felt we could kill some of their speed because usually, they are so effective at coming out and retrieving pucks that is just one of their assets.

“If we could slow them down with our forecheck we felt we’d have a chance to get back in the offensive zone.”

Sheffield’s inability to overcome that tactical straight-jacket leaves them a single point ahead of Guildford Flames at the top of the EIHL.

They are now in a quick turn around mode.

They returned home in the early hours of Friday morning and will set off early on Saturday for a game 300 miles north at Fife Flyers.

Such scheduling can derail teams and Fox described it as “not a great travel weekend for us”.

In Thursday’s encounter, Cardiff’s customary early zeal paid off.

They killed a penalty survived Danny Kristo striking the bar and then went ahead with a fifth-minute near-post tap-in for GB veteran Ben Davies, on the fourth line.

Taran Kozun acted smartly to deny Brandon Whistle an equaliser but Sheffield only had to wait until the 11th minute for that; Scott Allen motoring fast through centre ice to strike home his first in four games.

The hosts went ahead again at 23:55 unmarked Trevor Cox beating Matt Greenfield after a puck giveaway in centre ice.

Cardiff were outshooting Sheffield two-to-one and deserved their second period 2-1 lead.

It had been a while since Sheffield had lost a period let alone a match.

They were about to lose another.

Steelers just couldn’t open Cardiff up.

Brett Neumann missed a clear chance to level.

With less than seven minutes remaining, Devils’ Josh Waller was called for hooking.

It was an opportunity but the power play came and went for Sheffield.

Fox withdrew his goalie for an extra skater and with most of the 3,100 fans urging the home side over the line, Joey Martin easily despatched the killer goal for 3-1.

*The Challenge Cup Semi-Finals are: Belfast Giants v Guildford Flames and Steelers v Fife Flyers. Sheffield play the first leg away on January 25, then at home on February 15.