Welcome to our match report from Wednesday night's game against the Edinburgh Capitals.
On Valentine's night, Steelers looked to show some love to their fans as they hosted the EIHL's basement club: Edinburgh. It was marketed as another £5.00 game by the Steelers and despite the inclement weather outside, there was a decent crowd of just under 5000 in the House of Steel including about 13 fans from Edinburgh. Team news saw good news for the Steelers as two of their injured returned to the team, that being defencemen Miika Franssila and more surprisingly than most: Zack Fitzgerald. Fitzy was to play wing on the fourth line. Capitals depleted roster arrived with just two netminders and 13 skaters.
As expected Steelers were in the ascendancy from the first puck drop. However, the Capitals were defending stoically and netminder Tyler Beskorowany was facing a lot of rubber. Any offence the visitors created was rare as they were forced constantly onto the back foot. Yet after twenty minutes play, the teams headed back to their locker rooms goalless which was certainly not in the script.
The deadlock was broken just over five minutes into the middle period though, Mathieu Roy showing some good stick handling before wristing an effort beyond Beskorowany although it appeared to take a slight deflection off a Capitals defenceman en route. It was Mathieu's 22nd of the season. Two and half minutes later, Steelers added a second. Tim Wallace drove at the heart of the visiting defence and the puck eventually popped out to Levi Nelson who made no mistake to score his 18th of the season. After Roy had seen an effort gloved by the Capitals goaltender, the visitors called a time out and this kinda almost had instant dividends when they forced Ervins Mustukovs into a double save.
The pipework denied Roy a second but the third Steelers goal came just under four minutes before the end of the period, Eric Neiley netting his third of the season as he was given time to pick his spot. The biggest cheer so far that night came at 36:51 when Dylan Anderson stole the puck on the blue line and then skated forward on a breakaway before squeezing it under Mustukovs.
As the game entered its last two minutes, we were still locked at 3-1 despite the shot count getting larger. Then it all went a bit crazy. Beskorowany was sacrificed for an extra attacker and Roy fired home his 23rd of the season from out on the half boards, left wing side, into the empty cage. Yet we weren't done then. Anderson and Valeyev combined for Podzins to reduce it to 4-2. Beskorowany was pulled again and once more Steelers combined to hit the empty net for a second time in the evening. Davey Phillips finding fellow GB internationalist Ben O'Connor at halfway and his aim was true for a 14th goal of the season.
There was still 57 seconds left. 28 seconds later and Steelers added a sixth, Philips rifling home his 3rd of the season with all the finishing prowess of a forward. Then with four seconds later, Capitals Tyler Plews was whistled for an interference call which obviously upset him enough to get a ten minute misconduct in addition. Then with one second left to play, the crowd that were still in the building roared their approval for goal seven: O'Connor setting up Kieran Brown and the youngster rocketed an effort past Beskorowany for his maiden Steelers strike: and it was one that wouldn't have looked out of place in the NHL. It was that good. Game over!
Time for the statistics:
Goals: Steelers 7 Capitals 2
Steelers Scoring: Roy 2+1, D.Phillips 1+2, O'Connor 1+2, Neiley 1+0, Brown 1+0, Nelson 1+0, Wallace 0+1, Fitzgerald 0+1, Westerling 0+1.
Capitals Scoring: Anderson 1+1, Podzins 1+0, Valeyev 0+1.
Shots On Goal: Steelers 52 Capitals 11
Powerplay: Steelers 1 from 1 (100% conversion)
Penalty Minutes called: Steelers 0 Capitals 12
Steelers Goaltender Stats: Mustukovs 9 Saves (1086), GAA: 2.00 (2.33), Save Percentage: 81.80% (91.80%).
Man of the Match: Kieran Brown (Steelers), Dylan Anderson (Capitals)
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