Apologies for the lack of a preview for last night's first leg first of all. Tonight, Easter Sunday evening, sees the Steelers play their last game of the 2015-16 on home ice when they face off against the Coventry Blaze in the play-off second leg. A place in the Finals awaits the overall winners.
Will Steelers go through in their quest to complete a double? Or will Blaze, the current play-off champions, send the newly crowned Elite League champions tumbling out at the quarter final stage? It promises to be one hell of a battle.
Last night's encounter in the Sky Dome was an eventful game, that it has to be said. For the first 30 minutes, Blaze were on fire (pardon the pun) as they looked to continue their dominance over Paul Thompson's team. Five times they lit the lamp behind Marek Pinc's goal, and through five different scorers too. Steelers had been rocked good and proper by Chuck Weber's team, and one was spectulating how bad this was going to get. It looked a blow out was on the way, and the second leg was going to be one for the Steelers to just play for pride in front of their own fans.
However Steelers suddenly woke up, and it was Coventry's turn to rock and wobble.
Swedish centre Fredrik Vestberg ruined Brian Stewart's plans of a shutout just shy of the 33 minute mark and that was the kick on that Steelers needed. Skipper Jonathan Phillips carried the momentum on when he bloodied Blaze's Slovakian hardcase Boris Valàbik, which gained the skipper an early bath but it was a sign that Steelers would not hold the white flag up against their opponents. Pinc kept the Blaze at bay at one end of the ice to ensure no further goals would be conceded, whilst the visiting offence started to put the pressure on at the other.
Paul Thompson's men outshot Blaze 23-6 in the final period; which tells its own story. Two more visiting strikes from Robert Dowd and Guillaume Desbiens made the final score 5-3 and set the scene for tonight's second leg. It came at a cost though, as Canadian power forward Desbiens was sent tumbling to the ice by the afore mentioned Valàbik straight after scoring his goal with a brutal act that annoyed the visiting support no end. Having seen the incident myself now on video, it's callous and uncalled for but you can see that Valàbik had this in mind as he approached Desbiens. Quite a penalty was never called for it, is astonishing. You cannot defend the indefensible here.
We wish Gui a speedy recovery but if the prognosis is correct; his season has been ended by a cheap shot which has no place in our wonderful game. For some Blaze fans to allegedly say Desbiens has injured himself is blinkered vision, how would they feel if this the skate had been on the other foot so to speak?
Steelers can progress that I have no doubts though. It's all about defending smart and offensively doing what brought them three goals last night; and also inflicted that 6-3 drubbing in the same building against these same opponents just a fortnight ago. Two goals to draw level is certainly not beyond the team who worked their bag off to win the Monteith Bowl on the final day of the regular season. With Colton Fretter back in the line-up; they can definitely do this.
Prediction Time? Steelers to win the second leg and to overcome the Blaze. It will be a hard battle, but if the offence really clicks again, like we know it can, Brian Stewart and his chums could be in for a hard night in Sheffield 9. I'm not saying a scoreline though. But we will do it...
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