Coventry Blaze earned their second win of the season at the Utilita Arena with a hard-fought 3-1 victory on Saturday night.
“I am a little bit tired, but it is great to be feeling close to 100 percent back out there,” said Blaze goaltender Mat Robson, who stopped 48 shots. “I think we were due one and we are happy to have pulled it off tonight. Our guys have been working hard and pushing, and they deserved to get this tonight. It is especially fun to do it in a really fun building to play in against a team that have had our number the past few times we have played them. We took our chances tonight when we had them.”
A physical opening period on Teddy Bear Toss Night in Sheffield saw plenty of scrums after the whistle but little in the way of clear chances, and the teams went in scoreless after twenty minutes.
Coventry broke the deadlock early in the second. A shot from new signing Adam Robbins, making his first appearance at the arena, was pushed into the path of Colton Saucerman who swept it into the empty net. The Teddy Toss goal arrived just over thirty seconds later when Mikko Juusola was sprung on a breakaway and finished calmly past Robson to bring the bears down.
Elijiah Barriga silenced the home crowd with just over nine minutes left, stepping into the zone and beating Matt Greenfield to restore the Blaze lead. Sheffield pushed hard for an equaliser in the closing stages, pulling Greenfield with ninety seconds remaining, but could not find a way through. Matthew Gleason added the insurance goal on the empty net with 14 seconds to play.
“I think we have to move on pretty quickly from this and focus on tomorrow in Dundee,” said Steelers defenceman Reece Kelly. “We were unlucky not to score tonight, but we just need to keep our compete level up. We had some good chances, maybe just needed to get in front of the goalie’s eyes a bit more.”
With EIHL match report 
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