Steelers leave it late to edge past Flames

Photo: John Uwins

Sheffield Steelers beat Guildford Flames for the second time in a week, but had to do it the hard way with the result at the Spectrum in the balance until the final minutes.

Marc-Olivier Vallerand opened the scoring for the Steelers at 14:16 on the powerplay, but it wasn't the first time the Steelers had the puck in the net. With only 39 seconds gone they'd beaten Taz Burman, but the goal was washed out immediately for Goalie Interference. Aaron Fox challenged the call, and took a bench minor after the review went against him. Guildford weren't behind for long, though. An excellent Peter Crinella drive to the net eventually saw Steven McParland put the luck over the line to tie the game just over two minutes later. 

The 1,905-strong crowd had to wait over 20 minutes to see another goal. The Flames couldn't score 5-on-3 late in period two, but five seconds after the Steelers returned to four men it was McParland who thundered a shot past Matt Greenfield to put Guildford ahead at 39:53. 

After soaking up some pressure in the opening stages of the third period, Guildford began to create chances of their own - but they were caught out 3-on-2 the other way, and after Burman had made the initial save, Mikko Juusola wrapped the puck around him to tie things up with 9:42 to play. Greenfield pulled off a fantastic glove save to keep the game level, and exactly four minutes after the tying goal, Josh Allen scored directly off a Scott Allen faceoff win to turn the game in favour of the league leaders. 

Burman was pulled 78 seconds to play, but off a restart in the Steelers zone the puck fell to Colton Saucerman who shot from his own end to seal the game at 59:04.