Sheffield Steelers vs Fife Flyers - Sunday 1st December

Hello folks. This is my first blog with Frozen Steel. I'd like to take a moment to thank Liam for asking me to join in with this. Hopefully I can contribute in some capacity.

For my first blog I'm going to talk about tonight's game against the Fife Flyers in which Steelers came out with a 3-2 victory, on a Sunday!

I thought that throughout the game it was a very even contest and Fife can feel rather unlucky not to have got at least a point out of the game.

There wasn't much action in the first period but Fife looked the more dangerous side of the two coming forward, which was reflected in the shout count at the end of the period, 9-6 in favour of the visitors. They caused a couple of hairy moments for the Steelers. Thankfully, Frank Doyle was big in goal yet again and made a couple of good saves when bailing out his defense.

The only real notable part of the first period came in the 11th minute when whilst the Steelers were on a powerplay, the arena crowd stood and applauded for a solid minute in honour of Jeff Legue, who had scored his 500th EIHL point the night before in Hull. In doing so, he became the 5th player to achieve the landmark in EIHL history. Congratulations Jeff.

Early into the second period the deadlock between the two sides was broken. The puck was dumped in by the Steelers, who were just finishing killing a penalty, and Legue went in on the forecheck to put pressure on the Flyers netminder who had gone behind his goal to retrieve the puck. Regan fired the puck straight into Legue and the puck fell nicely in his favour behind the goal, before he brought the puck in front and put it into the open goal. It was an absolute gift for Legue and the Steelers and it turned out to be a costly mistake by the Flyers netminder.

At the halfway point of the game the two teams were very evenly matched with the scoreline at 1-0 to the Steelers.

A few minutes later Regan had to make a couple of big saves as the Steelers had some offensive zone pressure but it was shortly after that in which a rather soft penalty was given against Sirianni for tripping. The Flyers however weren't complaining and they capitalised on it. Some nice passing play led to the puck ending up on the stick of Haines who fired it past Doyle to even the scores at 1-1.

The scoreline didn't last long though. A couple of minutes later the Steelers were back in front. A great piece of puck handling in the Flyers zone by Sirianni allowed him to get free. As he was about to shoot he was pulled down and up went Darnell's arm ready to signal a penalty, however, the Flyers failed to touch the puck and Meyer was able to tip the puck back to Sirianni who wasted no time in firing it over Regan's glove and into the back of the net. A nice finish from Sirianni who looks like he is starting to find his scoring touch again.

The scoreline remained that way for the rest of the period so the Steelers went into the break 2-1 up.

On the first shift of the third and final period the Steelers extended their lead. Some good work behind the net led to Meyer getting a shot off on goal from an acute angle and the puck seemed to go in off Regan and over the line. The scoreline however did flatter the Steelers who had struggled most of the night defensively and it wasn't long before Fife got themselves back into the game.

Steelers had struggled all night the clear the zone efficiently and they eventually got punished. After a couple of attempts to get the puck out of the zone, which eventually happened by a couple of feet, the puck was back in the Steelers zone. A nice feed by Fulton from near the boards was tipped in by Stewart who was driving the net.

After that, the game opened up and the play started to go end to end. This seemed to favour the Flyers more who had more speed about them. Doyle again having to make a couple of good stops to stop the score being tied up at 3 a piece.

Into the last few minutes of the game it looked like the Flyers were just starting to run out of steam in chasing the game. This made it easier for the Steelers to see the game out and seal a much needed 3-2 victory.

Personally speaking, overall I thought that the Flyers gave a very good account of themselves. They looked dangerous going forward. The only time they looked a little unsure was whenever they had the puck behind their own goal. They certainly aren't a 10th place team in my eyes.

As for the Steelers, it was good to finally see a Sunday win again. The defense looked a bit shaky at times and struggled to clear the zone well all night long. The faceoff stats I would think were rather one sided as we seemed to struggle in the faceoff circle all night. Doyle played very well indeed. The other notable stand out for me was Meyer who worked very hard all night and would have been my personal choice for Man of the Match. I don't know who actually got the awards for either side.

That's it from me. I hope you've enjoyed the read.

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Cheers!

Alan
@AwkwardGinge