Sheffield Steelers' dressing room comradeship revealed by star defenceman Matt Petgrave

An inconsistent run put the heat on all individual players in the Arena locker room, before last weekend's double wins.

But there were never any rifts between the players, and that, perhaps, is not something you could say about some other EIHL dressing rooms.

Petgrave said: "I think it has always been the right attitude even when things haven't been going our way.

"It's just the dressing groom we have here, everybody cares about each other, there are no issues or anything like that.

"Losing is never fun but coming to the rink every day with the group of guys that we have makes it a little bit better, we pick each other up."

That comradeship demonstrated itself in the victories over Nottingham Panthers and Manchester Storm.

But Petgrave isn't getting carried away, with fourth-place Sheffield five points behind leaders Belfast Giants with a game in hand.

"I don't think you ever get too ahead of yourself," he said.

The team was just happy with the effort everybody put in last weekend.

"We got four points, made up a little bit of ground after the results around the league, but you can't get too high right now. You have to take it game by game.

"Things haven't been going our way but you have to take the positives."

The defenceman said it was crucial they had a "tremendous week of practice with everybody working hard and everybody in right attitudes and the rest will take care of itself."

Petgrave suggested the killer instinct, which had been missing recently, had returned.

He said Scott Allen, against Nottingham, and Daniel Ciampini against Manchester, had scored vital goals which had turned events in their favour.

Sheffield had closed out games and played the full 60 minutes, as opposed to earlier slip-ups.

Previously they had allowed opponents to "linger around" and then made mistakes and conceded costly goals, he said.

Now the focus was on beating Belfast and Guildford Flames this weekend, although the team was also thinking about Sebastien Piche, who has undergone an operation and will be out for most of the rest of the season at least.

Losing Piche "leaves a big hole back there in our line up" Petgrave said.

"Certain guys had stepped up" and tried to fill his shoes, he said.

His shooting and defending were missed and teammates were hoping he will return before the end of the EIHL campaign.