Welcome to our match report from Saturday's away game at Braehead Clan.
Steelers only had a single game to play this weekend due to the 2018 Challenge Cup Final taking place on the Sunday. The fixture saw the team travel to the West of Scotland to face an underperforming Braehead Clan for the final time in regular season action. It was also the chance for the team to complete a clean sweep over John Tripp's men. Team news saw the Steelers welcome back key British forward Robert Dowd after a spell out injured which left Jonas Westerling and John Armstrong as the Club's only injured players whilst Kieran Brown was on NIHL duty with Blackburn. Clan didn't have a larger bench as the Steelers but featured former Steelers Christoffer Bjorklund and Matt Haywood in their line-up.
Apologies for the short write-up in advance by the way, we've based on what we could get from any social media interaction we could obtain...
The first period was a scoreless affair, but Steelers were keeping Ryan Nie in the home cage busy as they had 14 shots on him whilst Ervins Mustukovs faced 10 from the Clan offence in opposition. That first goal was as always going to prove crucial and it was the Clan who managed it with defenceman Landon Oslanski lighting the lamp just before the 29 minute mark in the game. Steelers were still outshooting the Clan but fell further behind at 30:39 when Clan player-assistant coach Brendan Brooks netted from close range. An uphill faced Paul Thompson's men but they were given a lifeline at 34:36 when Miika Franssila scored his third goal of the season after some excellent work Captain Fantastic Jonathan Phillips.
One goal in it as the teams entered a third period, could the Steelers come back and take the points away from Renfrewshire? Two goals in the early stages of this period made it still possible but alas for the Steelers; these were shared. Big defenceman Craig Cescon put the Clan 3-1 to the good at 43:37 but 53 seconds saw it reduced to a one goal game again when Ben O'Connor and Davey Phillips combined to set up Eric Neiley for the American's 6th of the season. Was there to be final twist? The answer eventually proved to be no as Clan scored twice in the 63 seconds, both within 16 seconds of each other. Former Belfast Giant Craig Peacock scored number four and then with Mustukovs sacrificed, Adam Brace slotted the insurance goal into the vacant cage. Two points which the team should have, squandered and a tale of the season again left laid bare.
Time for the statistics:
Goals: Clan 5 Steelers 2
Steelers Scoring: Franssila 1+0, Neiley 1+0, D.Phillips 0+1, J.Phillips 0+1, O'Connor 0+1.
Clan Scoring: Cescon 1+2, Brace 1+1, Oslanski 1+0, Brooks 1+0, Peacock 1+0, Haywood 0+1, Hämäläinen 0+1, Doty 0+1, Nie 0+1.
Shots On Goal: Steelers 42 Clan 30
Powerplay: Steelers 0 from 3 (0% conversion), Clan 0 from 6 (0% conversion)
Penalty Minutes called: Steelers 14 Clan 8
Steelers Goaltender Stats: Mustukovs 25 Saves (1227), GAA: 4.06 (2.35), Save Percentage: 86.20% (91.70%).
Man of the Match: Ben O'Connor (Steelers), Craig Cescon (Clan)
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