The Sheffield Steelers’ Scottish road-trip has turned dark.
Aaron Fox’s side suffered their second defeat in-a-row on Saturday [10 January], beaten 7-4 at the hands of the Fife Flyers.
Speaking to local reporters after the game, Fox called Sheffield’s play “soft” and “lazy” on a night when they dropped to forth in the standings.
“It’s just small spurts of games that are killing us: five-minute stretch in the first period when Fife scored three, it was just soft, lazy,” explained the Canadian.
“We’re not physical enough and we switched off after conceding the first one.”
Welcome to Around the Rinks: our daily summary of every Elite League team’s post-game media remarks.
Around the Rinks: Saturday, 10 January
Guildford Flames 2-3 Coventry Blaze (Overtime)
Paul Dixon, Guildford Flames:
I didn’t like our first two periods tonight: we were outworked and outbattled and we give Coventry full credit for that. That’s unacceptable for us. For two periods, it just wasn’t good enough. In the third period, we played like we should’ve from the start. I know it’s a point, but I class it as a home loss. It was a tough watch and we’ve got to address some issues here. You’ve got to compete for the full 60 minutes and we just weren’t ready to do that tonight. It’s a shame that it’s a one-game weekend for us and we have to wait a week to get back on the horse. We’ve got to take a hard look at ourselves to see what the problem is.
Coltyn Bates, Coventry Blaze:
It was a good, tight game. Guildford’s got a good team and they play hard. It was a tight one and we’re happy to come away with the two points.
Belfast Giants 4-1 Nottingham Panthers
Carsen Twarynski, Belfast Giants (Image: William Cherry)
George Awada, Belfast Giants:
It’s a big weekend for us. We’ve been on the road for a bit and, coming home, we knew that we had to be at our best, playing against Nottingham. And I thought everyone was. From Jackson [Whistle] all the way out, everyone did their job, the whole way through the game. It was a good, solid effort from everybody.
Everyone is bought in physically, we’re getting good blocks and clears at five-on-five and five-on-four. It was the difference. They’re a very good team, too, but our penalty kill pulled us through. It was a big night for special teams in that respect. We couldn’t score [on the powerplay], but our kill was the best.
Danny Stewart, Nottingham Panthers:
I don’t think we deserved more: Belfast were the better team tonight. In saying that, I thought we were starting to come back in the second period, but we made a mistake in the corner and they scored an easy second goal. That stunned us a little bit and their third was out of our control: it takes a bad hop off the glass and there’s nothing we can do about that.
I just thought Belfast were physical and gapped-up all night. They didn’t give us a lot of time or space out there and they slowed our transition down. They executed a lot better than us. When we did have the puck in the slot, there were five or six times when we just fumbled it. It was just one of those nights.
Belfast were certainly the better team tonight and they got the two points.
Fife Flyers 7-4 Sheffield Steelers
Justin Ducharme, Fife Flyers (Image: Jillian McFarlane)
Jamie Russell, Fife Flyers:
It was a great effort by the guys. We outshot them 34-28, were 100 percent on the penalty kill, and scored a big goal on the powerplay. [Christian Purboo] made some big saves early and we stuck with it when we were under pressure in the third. It’s a big win in front of a big crowd.
Aaron Fox, Sheffield Steelers:
I thought we actually started the game very, very well. We took the lead and both sets of fans were electric. I’m obviously embarrassed for our fans, who came all this way and we’ve got nothing to show for it right now. It’s just small spurts of games that are killing us: five-minute stretch in the first period when Fife scored three, it was just soft, lazy. We’re not physical enough and we switched off after conceding the first one.
I thought we were better in the second period until the last five minutes. Then, we gave up two more and we’re chasing the game at 5-2 down. I think this is the most difficult time as a coach, when you’re going through stretches when you just can’t seem to build 20 minutes at a time and find what it takes to win hockey games.
I’m not a guy who goes scorched earth on his team in the media, but, at the end of the day, we’ve got to find a way to stay in this fight. We’re five points out of first place and we have the exact same amount of points that we had after 28 games last year. It obviously doesn’t feel the same: we’re thin right now.
If we’re going to find positives: we didn’t give up. It’s frustrating because if you look at where we should be, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. We’ve got to find a way to get points tomorrow.
Manchester Storm 2-1 Cardiff Devils
Cam Critchlow, Manchester Storm:
Quotes to follow.
Paul Thompson, Cardiff Devils:
Quotes to follow.
READ MORE:
