Sheffield Steelers v Belfast Giants – 9th March 2024

Highlights from the Steelers double header weekend against the Belfast Giants on Saturday 8th March 2024. Commentary from Jonathan Fearnley and Ron Shudra. © Sheffield Steelers 2024

Back in the ’90s the men in teal were for real no not the Belfast Giants they weren’t around back then it was the Steelers decked out in those classic colors winning leagues cups and playoffs this is retro weekend and several of the players who help the club stamp their

Authority on British ice hockey at back Micha O Connor Scott Neil Andre Marlo Nicki chin David longstaff Rocket run sh and the Messiah Ken Priestley last year’s team in teal won the lot too but Belfast haven’t been their usual selves this season regular roster changes throughout the campaign haven’t fixed everything and they’re

Still trying to find their stride ahead of the playoffs Sheffield meanwhile are just six wins away from the title Scott Allen and Robert Dow are back Patrick Harper misses out mik o Conor Scott Neil Andre Marlo Nicki chin David longstaff Ron shudra and Ken Priestley 2,185 Steelers games between them 944 goals 1,252

[Applause] assists so Oliver Cooper in the Box for two minutes on a boarding Miner the Steelers on five on four oh that’s a really painful block hit up oh that’s not a nice one yeah I think it’s caught him somewhere the top of the the forehead oh fingers crossed everybody medical staff

Are being helped out immediately I’m not sure I even want to watch that yeah look he gets the he gets his head turned and and off to the side so hopefully it takes off the uh the side of the the impact good work by Tesco he’s going to

Cycle backwards keep the Giants in possession for a little bit longer oh Sato has left that one behind Simpson will take it from him tries to knife his way through Allen off Target Chini where’s that one going to land just wide Giants got to stick to it tanzi sa whistle fantastic recovery [Applause]

Save looks as though everybody’s okay down there but what a fantastic passage of play there whistle just diving all over the place but look at that the hand eye too guys are batting pucks out of the air and somehow it gets out to to Kevin tany whistle

Gets himself just about turned around in time and makes a pretty good save put wedged in front of the Steelers bench there Spears who emerg with it back hands it across to The Far Side drop pass slap gows and put in on the rebound Giants get the opening goal through

Nazarian yeah might have been a little bit of a fortunate play here I’m not sure if this gets all the way through thear does a good job getting into that scoring area you’ll see the shot coming in here from Cullen we’ll see if it gets all the

Way through it does get through it’s kicked out in front T in us can’t do anything about it as the buk is kicked back into the high slot so was poking at it never line did well C has Bounce It Forward battle now on front of the Giants Penalty Box and

It’s the Giants who get the better of it they’ll move in dangerously the pass across and they score they’ve doubled their advantage through McLoud now they’ve hit the Steelers late in the first and now early in the second yeah we’ll see what happens through the neutral zone it com back in

Jones doesn’t quite get back in a good sauce pass through Neville does what he can good catch and release there through the Belfast player McLoud finds the uh glove side you see there’s a bang bang play in there and cers can’t recover it cers have an opportunity here Cormier

Moves through plays the pass down low whistle scrambles and I think he got something on it Cormier with a great Outlet pass oh that’s one on the back door yeah even better save by whistle for that one have it better here he’s good double pump but he definitely gets

His leg across whistles catlike [Applause] [Applause] tonight Giants racing forward again they take the shot on and it squeezed through Green Field he can’t believe that’s beaten him yeah again it’s a it’s a two-on-one development long just gets the puck to the net Greenfield looks like he has it it looks like it just pinballs in

Between the five hole and just sneaks his way through turns back and tries to find the pass will up to sorcer and balmas oh he took his eye off the book as he was about to snap it fired forward and kicked Away by whistle [Applause] back with San

Again balas back to our play steel a score that’s got the crowd going valand yeah this is the one that they had the chance before in the first period with Bas faking the shot comes across whistle doesn’t quite AC get across quick enough this time ban this

Time puts it up into the top of the net where last time we put it sort of halfway up great Puck retrieval as well on this side some good second efforts to get the puck in and around Bas and saucerman and then bound just working in the Weeds on the outside as he

[Applause] does now offside on the Giants the PO never left the [Applause] Zone tany lands the big hit but illegally so crowd don’t like it but Bing is cold yeah late call from David good as well right here Kevin T he comes in just out of sight you can see pay of

Turns Staples him through a little bit yeah two minute call maybe that’s about it power play will continue into the third if the Giants don’t score immediately they’ve got a chance to take a three-goal lead into the intermission five on four power play Puck is with Tesco likes lurking net front and deflected

In Tesco shot hit a Steeler and beat Greenfield and the Giants do have that fourth goal late in the second yeah Tesco there you can see just goes off the St neev line and just turns his skate trying to disrupt the pass coming through but you can see both the

Uh the Belfast players stick down it was a set play that Tesa was trying to do if it was going to try and get it through Neville line and to get the puck to the front of the net there was two sticks there that they can try to get

You can see one one short one wide [Applause] pass through the middle valoran in and the save made by whistle they didn’t get a shot on the opportunity but valoran did on this one long Le pass through the middle he took it well if the put can of popped up off his

Stick it’s a really good stop for whistle in any [Applause] case ca’s fourth power play of the game they’re one for three so far set up in the offensive zone and it’s in from saucerman it took just 11 seconds of the man Advantage the Steelers have one of the

Minimum of three that they need not the most vicious of shots but deadly accurate I’m not sure that whistle got the cleanest line of sight on it [Applause] seventh goal of the season for Colton soran Watling dowed wide of the goal and that’ll get out of the Zone Giants fans are on their

Feet they’re almost there the work’s not done yet valand oh hit his own player and now the Giants will race through the net is empty and they find it part one of the weekend double header goes to the Belfast Giants yeah valeron looked like he tried to get the shot towards the N

Unfortunately I going to hit Simpson out in front and Belfast quickly off the other way not much uh anybody can do about this the only thing you hope for is he misses a net but don’t think that’s going to happen M clouds second of the game into

The empty net has seen them through to Victory by five goals for two and the Steelers have now lost on three consecutive Saturdays a gap at the top of the table he’s down to nine still a great position to be in but the devils are getting closer Marco valand is the Steelers man

Of the match a goal and an assist but no Eddie because the Steelers have been defeated on home ice back to back home defeats for the Sheffield Steelers yeah I mean some uncharacteristic decision um for us especially in that second period I actually liked our first period

I thought we uh we came with some energy it was physical physical game in the first we matched the physicality they brought I thought whs made a couple huge saves there I thought we slanted the ice for most of the first pretty unfortunate to to be down one nothing after um you

Know a goal off to run a play there for them and then you know second period there Switched Off for six minutes probably to start the period couple bad off the puck decisions you know leads to a couple two-on-one situations there Greener probably wants one of those back

For sure then in the power play goes off our skate short side there again just a little bit of uh bad Puck luck I loved our third I thought we pushed back really really hard in the third same thing um you know probably created more than than we were rewarded with in the

Third period but a good team like Belfast if you spot them three goals you’re it’s making hard work of it coming back in that situation um you know good good uh be some good video session tomorrow you know guys got to look in the mirror a little bit at at

Times two over this last five six game stretch um you know definitely not as detailed as we’ve been and and uh a lot of hockey left to play here so you know we we’ll I expect a response tomorrow back-to-back defeats on home ice but I get the sense you’re slightly happier

With this performance than the Manchester one yeah I mean that Manchester performance wasn’t a good one for sure um definitely we played better hockey tonight for for 40 minutes you know like I said the second period was wasn’t great for us tonight um but the

The first and the third I I you know I really can’t sit here and complain too much about from an effort compete level the way uh you know the shot counts the chance chip for chance against totals in that period um you know but there’s

There’s a couple we we got a few guys who aren’t playing their best hockey right now and and we need them is that a concern with another game against the same team tomorrow and then a cup final midweek yeah there’s always concerns in this business and that’s the reality of

Um you know the Belfast won that the treble last reason for a reason there’s a bunch of guys on that team that were out here do they play hard um they’re very aggressive in in all three zones so you’ve got to be ready to make plays

Quick and and make them pay when when you put them in in some tough spots so we didn’t do that tonight and they like I said they countered us off the Run of play a couple times and you know that’s the result we got there was one moment

In the second period when a high stick was was called and then it wasn’t called it happened right in front of the Steelers bench what was your view yeah I mean that that’s been not called on us probably four times this year it’s um it’s a if in a shooting or passing

Motion and it’s off the uh the follow through it’s it’s actually not a penalty um happened to us in Belfast once actually as well and I’ve sat and talked to the refs and hickie about those calls that we didn’t get when we got high stuck so when I saw that tonight it was

Very very similar situation um you know and and they they kept the rule of the law there on that and you know took the penalty away there were three non- homegrown players in the stands tonight in Marone venel and Harper will we see one two or three of those tomorrow I we

See not sure ad don’t that must be a very pleasing win for you yeah that one feels good for sure happy for the guys they thought they competed and battled for a full 60 um it’s not hard to see why Sheffield’s in the position they are

Are in I mean that’s a very good team uh very fast they transitioned extremely fast put us under a lot of pressure um and Jackson was there for us you know he he stood tall he’s a big reason why we’re coming out of this with with the

Two points but uh I thought the guys battled for him as well and was nice to see them get rewarded it’s been a long time since these two teams played but they were both lopsided games in Sheffield’s favor what was different tonight about the way your team approached the

Game uh I think we were in the game you know that’s something a little different I mean the first game here it was Was Out Of Reach probably before we could really get our feet wet and we gave up a few goals early and then same thing in

Belfast I think it was 30-0 down but within the first five to 10 minutes so it’s it’s difficult to play from behind like that tonight was different uh we were playing in front and you know it’s a little easier to to defend and we certainly had to do that particularly in

The first period I thought that they really had some some quality looks in the first period Jackson stood tall thought the second period I thought we were much better in the second period limited the scoring chance es third period you know they really pressed and

Put us under a lot of pressure and guys competed and battled for each other Jackson came through with some big saves and some Big Blocks uh ultimately we got out of there with two points so we’re certainly happy there was one nasty moment early in the game with a pu to

The face of Charlie cty what can you tell us at this early stage I’m not sure it doesn’t sound great it looks Puck to the nose SL cheekbone area so he’s gone for X-rays at the hospital we’ll see how those come back um you know it’s a courageous uh

Play by Charlie to to get out and try to block that shot unfortunately that it got ramped up a stick and hit him in the face uh but he’s been blocking shots like that for us whenever he’s in and I’m happy that the guys got the two

Points for him these two teams play again tomorrow will it just be a question of more of the same from your side yeah there’s some areas we certainly need to get better at and we need to you know review the video and see where the breakdowns came from and

Try to be better in those areas but you know that is a very good cheffield team you know we look at at their roster they’re very deep uh four line strong that can all score and obviously some defenseman that uh are having great years so um you know we’re just going to

Have to try and frustrate them and when we get our opportunities we’re going to have to score and and try to create uh you know little rebounds and and scrambles there in front of Greenfield like we did Tonight