SHEFFIELD – Sheffield Steelers backed up a victory against Cardiff Devils by hitting four goals past Belfast Giants at the FlyDSA Arena on Sunday afternoon.
Aaron Fox was without the services of Josef Hrabal, Anthony DeLuca and Brendan Connolly as James Bettauer found himself on the wing for the afternoon.
Connolly was handed a one-game suspension just before face-off following an incident in the game on Saturday.
An early power play with the Giants called for too many men, gave the Steelers a perfect opportunity to open the scoring and they duly did.
With a power play goal already on Saturday to his name Marek Troncinsky first hit the post before burying the rebound past the Giants defenceman on the line (02:13).
Both teams had a fair share of opportunities that tested the starting goalies and the pace of the game was that very similar to the night before.
A power play of their own gave Belfast the equalising goal when Lucas Sandstrom skated to the penalty box for slashing. The puck was fed to the blue line where Jordan Smotherman’s shot proved too much for Duba to handle.
A controversial moment of period one saw Giants captain, Matt Pelech ejected from the game for a high hit that was deemed to be to the neck/head area.
This gave the Steelers a 5-minute penalty and the extra man advantage would come to fruition once more, Davies finding Eberle parked out in front and his snapshot was fired past Owen.
Dogged penalty killing from the Giants side saw them kill off the remaining three minutes limiting Sheffield to very few grade-a opportunities.
Period two was surprisingly open with extended time without a whistle for the first 5 minutes and this seemed to suit the visitors.
Smotherman, Ward and Lake went close but Duba remained resolute, denying all shots that came his way. Something that Sheffield have done well recently is clearing the loose puck and no rebounds were left untouched from the defenceman in front of him.
The next goal was crucial and fortunately, it came for the Steelers and another power play goal. A fluid passing display left Michael Davies at the back door to fire his one-timer past a sprawling Owen.
There was non-stop movement in the penalty boxes, sixteen calls in total and this was to hamper the flow of the middle period and the early third period chances.
No more goals would follow until Shane Owen was pulled to the bench for the extra attacker, the puck found it’s way to James Bettauer who fired from the centreline and into the empty goal.
Photo’s by Sam Scott
@samscott2271
martin.scott@prohockeynews.com
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