Welcome once more to another Junior Report. Many thanks again to George for supplying it, this time he looks back at the home double header weekend against the Panthers and the Storm, Enjoy the read..
The tale of a two point
weekend
The Sheffield Steelers had one of
the most important weekends of the season so far starting January the third
with a euphoric home game against the Nottingham Panthers, followed up by a
disastrous game against the storm on Sunday. The weekend had a lot of actions
crammed into it. With the Steelers scoring 10 goals, however conceding 11 in
the process. There was a fight, and two major checking to the head calls over
the course of the weekend, with the moose probably having one of the worst
weekends he’s had for a while, after many consecutively impressive
performances.
The season is starting to tighten
up now, with the league almost out of sight for the Steelers, we have to
concentrate on the challenge cup and playoffs, which are both competitions which
we certainly have a very good chance of becoming champions. In three seasons
the Steelers have gotten to two challenge cup finals, losing both by just one
goal, however we worry about that on Wednesday, which will be the make or break
game of our season.
Anyway onto Saturday. A very
impressive performance meant we saw past the bears, and beat them. The match
started badly for the Steelers as Ollie Betteridge opened the scoring with a low
shot past Mustukovs, that beat him very easily. However the Steelers responded
perfectly, with the main man in form Liam Kirk snapping a wrister from the
circle high into the top corner to level the game up very quickly. However the
panthers then responded again, which was very out of character for their side,
having a torrid run in the league would surely mean they would curl up and die
against the Steelers on a Saturday night? Nope. It proved to me a hell of a
game, which was very tense and had everything. Which is just what you want from
a hockey game. The Panthers scored through Jeff Brown with two minutes to go in
the first period, he pounced upon many defensive errors before simply hammering
the puck home.
You’d have thought the Steelers
would bounce back quickly, not to be the case. Zack Phillips hammered one from the
top of the circle to beat Mustukovs high glove side. Which at this point was
what the panthers deserved. However the Steelers were to fight back. The
Steelers second of the evening came through the impressive Matt Marquardt, who
danced through a poor Panthers defence to slot through the five hole of
Garnett. Steelers then scored again on a five on three power play.
Excellent work from the Steelers out in front of goal paying dividends. The
puck finally found its way through to Mathieu Roy, who squared to Jonas Westerling who couldn’t miss the open net in front of him. A great fight back
from the Steelers was far from over. The lads scoring again courtesy of an
awful line change from the panthers which meant Valdix could skate the entire
ice before unleashing a slap shot past Garnett. This was the end of the goalies
night, having an absolute nightmare from start to finish. End of the period
4-3.
The Panthers responded with 8
minutes to play. Alex Mokshantsev scoring through the blocker of Mustukovs, which
tied the game. However it wouldn’t be a Steelers-Panthers game without some
last gasp drama. Mark Matheson skating from end to end to play a simple one-two
with Marquardt and slotting past Patrick Galbraith, to erupt the entire
building of 8500 fans. It was hilarious and euphoric at the same time.
You knew it was coming, but what
no one saw coming, was a cold Sunday night in Attercliffe...
The Steelers faced off against a
Manchester Storm side that had failed to beat the Steelers in all competitions
since they joined the league for the 15/16 season. Captain fantastic Jay
Rosehill managed to get kicked out of the game very early on with a check to
the head. Which gave the Steelers a five minute power play, and an excellent
chance to race into the lead. Which they did, they scored two on the power
play. Both courtesy of Mathieu Roy. Punishing the Storm's lack of discipline. We
then went 3-0 up. Westerling with his mark on the game made us cruise. We were
cruising to victory at this point. The Storm got a goal back through Hammond
towards the end of the first, to give them hope of a fightback. 3-1 end of the
first.
The Storm got a second in the
second period through McKinney. He sparked a lot of life into a Storm side
which have never managed to beat the Steelers in all competitions. The hope of
gaining their first win against the Steelers was seemingly ended by Jonathan Phillips and
Mathieu Roy, the latter getting his hat trick in this game. 5-2 midway through
the second, at home against a very average team, it’s time to cruise!
Or so we thought. 5, YES 5
UNANSWERED, GOALS made the Steelers lose the game. It was painful to watch.
Completely lost the momentum and we managed to lose. It was almost upsetting in
a way. To see us go into free fall is not a pretty sight. Hammond, Byers and
Moffatt three times completely sealed the win for the storm. There was no hope
of a fightback, sadly.
We must respond in the second leg
on Wednesday.
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