Match Report | 14th September 2007 » Sheffield Steelers 3-3 Sheffield Scimitars

Face Off: 7.30pm, Wednesday 29th August 2007

Right from the puck drop the Scimitars looked more settled and confident together as a team than the Steelers, who had had limited practice together.

Peter Slamiar settled in early with Dowd and Wallace on the wings in support and Paul Jones taking Pasi Raitanen's place for the game. Approaching the fifteen minute mark Steelers had taken 6 mins in penalties and Scimitars 4 mins, they looked a little anxiously at the scoreboard. There was a visible increased effort on offence from the Steelers with Finnerty leading the play into the Scimitars end of the rink. Struggling to get the puck out of the corner, Finnerty eventually found Tait who made a cross ice pass to Phillips in space who snapped the puck over the prostrate arm of Paul Jones from a narrow angle to open the Steelers' account. Scimitars were 1-0 down at the end of the 1st but didn't look in any way over awed by the Steelers, in fact they looked more like equals.

Early in the second period Jonesy had to make a series of good stops on Steelers breakaways and stood firm frustrating the opposition at each turn. Scimitars were still troubling the Steelers defence and came close on at least two occasions through Wallace and Dowd. Steelers made the traditional move at half-way through the game and replaced Lehman with Sheffield's own Dave Lawrence. The pressure then switched to the Scimitars end of the ice and Jonesy once again stood tall, too tall on one rush, the bullet of a shot bouncing off the top of his mask and into the safety netting behind the goal. Steelers tried to build again and at 30:15 Thomas found Phillips unchallenged by Scimitars' defence in the low slot and he slammed the puck home back post past Jones for a 2-0 Steelers lead. Scimitars speed over the ice was now noticeably quicker and Steelers' Finnerty took a rookie hooking call at 30:59 to put the Scimitars on the powerplay. A minute and a half later Wallace hooked up with Peter Slamiar who rattled the underside of Lawrence's crossbar to open the Scimitars tally for the day, much to delight of the Scimitars fans.

The Scimitars were clearly now stepping up to the challenge and through hard work and good old Yorkshire grit. A series of frustration penalties taken by the Steelers saw the Scimitars one man better off for most of the second half of the second period. Scimitars were settling into their power play role nicely when at 38:02 Shudra found Ben Morgan whose shot beat Dave Lawrence to even up the game. A 2-1 period for the Scimitars was a superb tonic.

Scimitars joy was pretty short-lived though as five minutes into the third period Tait found Legue, who bore down on Jonesy, stretching the netting for the Steelers' third. Steelers looked to be slowing down and the Scimitars took full advantage of the youthful skaters on the team forcing the Steelers back into their own zone. Steelers broke out again but a cool move by Scimitars defence returned the puck to Peter Slamiar who, beating a forward and defenceman passed inch perfect to Rob Dowd who nailed the snap shot to end the game 3-3.

Most Scimitars fans would have struggled to name a MOM, Jonesy, Dowd, Wallace, Johnson, Morgan, Shudra and others too all put in super early season performances however the MOM award went to Peter Slamiar who had a super first game and is looking a class above the average NBT player we saw in the EPL last season.

Scimitars were missing their fourth import and James Goodman. Steelers were also waiting for the arrival of Randy Dagenais a defencemen they will surely need after this performance.

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