Steelers victorious in Manchester

Photo: Mark Ferris

The Sheffield Steelers hit eight goals to win their first game of the Premier Sports Challenge Cup on opening night in Manchester.

Tanner Eberle gave the Steelers, and their large group of travelling fans, a dream start when he shot past Matt Ginn short side with just 55 seconds played. With the sides playing 4-on-4, the visitors doubled their lead through Evan Mosey at 8:53, and he put the Steelers three ahead after a pass from Anthony DeLuca was blocked by Linden Springer, but the rebound fell kindly for Mosey with Ginn stranded.

Tyson Fawcett gave the Storm the start to period two that they needed, finding space in the slot to fire home just 1:20 into the middle frame. Just shy of seven minutes later the Steelers were back three ahead however with a Brendan Connolly shot that bobbled through Ginn. Storm responded again when Dallas Ehrhardt was left unmarked at the back post with 30:31 on the clock, and were unlucky not to reduce the arrears with an excellent powerplay that kept the Steelers pinned in their zone - 2-4 to the visitors after 40 minutes.

Ehrhardt's point shot through traffic got the Shelter rocking as the Storm moved to within one with 11:28 left to play, but the Steelers responded 66 seconds later through Tanner Eberle to go back two ahead after the Storm had failed to clear their zone.

An incident involving Linden Springer saw the Storm defenseman ejected from the game with 5:11 to go, and that major penalty meant the Steelers would be on the powerplay for almost all of the remainder of the game - Marc-Olivier Vallerand, Anthony DeLuca and Robert Dowd made them pay by adding goals to cap the visitors' win with an 8-3 scoreline.

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