Storm come from behind twice, beat Steelers on penalty shots

Photo: Mark Ferris

Manchester Storm twice came from a goal behind to level and had to survive an overtime penalty kill before beating Sheffield Steelers on penalty shots on Sunday night.

Adam Brady's snipe gave Manchester the lead 7:33 into this hotly-contested Pennines derby. At 13:06 an off-the-puck incident involving Linden Springer and Keaton Ellerby saw both players receive fighting majors with the Storm defenseman being ejected for the game on a kicking call. Marc-Olivier Vallerand fired the puck past Jason Bacashihua to tie the game 2:34 into the powerplay to level things up. 

The Steelers took the lead 1:41 before the first intermission through Matias Sointu on the powerplay. 

Period two was frantic but produced no goals, and the teams went into the third as they were. Frankie Melton got the last touch off a Cameron Critchlow shot in front of Rok Stojanovič which just crept over the line to tie the game, with the call being upheld after video review, at 47:49. However, the Steelers weren't level for long and re-gained the lead with a wonder Robert Dowd half-volley one-timer that thundered into the back of Bacashihua's net 63 seconds later.

Storm arguably deserved at least a point and were rewarded for their perseverance when Ryson Fawcett tipped Noah Delmas' shot past Stojanovič to raise the volume inside the Storm Shelter again. 

The game headed into overtime where the Steelers went on a man advantage 90 seconds in through a lazy Curtis Hamilton hooking minor. That failed to produce any goals, nor did the first 13 shots of the shootout before Delmas slotted home the winner!

The Storm's win was significant at both ends of the table. It moved Manchester back to just four points off a playoff place with five games to play, while Sheffield - assuming they win all of their games in hand on Belfast - would now trail the Giants by a point ahead of their double-header next weekend.