Steelers blank Storm, move 14 points clear

Photo: Dean Woolley

A shutout vistory over Manchester in front of 7,836 fans saw Sheffield Steelers go 14 points clear the top of the league.

Manchester started the game the better and had some good possession around Matt Greenfield's net, but without creating a huge amount. The Steelers grew into the game and took the lead thorugh Patrick Watling with 13:35 played. Connor Lee was a better pass away from tying the game, but the Storm were made to pay for not taking their chances with nine seconds left in the period through a wonderful individual effort from Kevin Tansey.

Storm had an early powerplay chance in period two but failed to create any sustained pressure on Greenfield. The Steelers showed them how to do it when they scored 47 seconds into a Stephen Johnson penalty, Daniel Ciampini the only player who seemed to know where the puck was at the far post to lift it into the net at 26:06. 

That was where the scoring stopped in a game where the Steelers would go on to out-shoot their visitors 46-18 over 60 minutes. Matt Greenfield logged his seventh league shutout of the season.