After falling behind by 3, Flames pulled themselves within a goal to close the 2nd period, but a trio of unanswered Steelers strikes in the 3rd completed their 7-3 win over the visitors to crown the Yorkshire side League champions.
Patrick Watling, Scott Allen and Marc-Olivier Vallerand, his on the powerplay, had Steelers up by 3 less than 15 minutes into the contest.
Brett Ferguson got Spectrum’s men on the board at 21:33 and Mike Crocock made it 3-2 just 20 seconds later. Kevin Tansey extended Steelers again in the 26th minute, but Ferguson on a powerplay at 33:48 had Flames just a goal off the pace through 40 minutes.
Steelers put it out of reach in the in the 3rd, however. Mitchell Balmas netted at 46:45 to offer insurance while Daniel Ciampini and Vallerand, again on the powerplay, inside the last 4 minutes completed their 2nd trophy capture of the campaign.
Taz Burman made 26 stops on 33 shots. Matt Greenfield turned away 20 of 23.
“All we can do is congratulate Sheffield Steelers on a great season so far and very deserving double trophy winners now,” said Paul Dixon.
“We wanted to come here and just hold them off for at least the night, but they are just so hard to defend because they have so much talent. Tonight we made a go of it after falling behind but couldn’t get all the way back before they broke it open again.”
“The good news is that after a very challenging travel package the last many weeks, and 3 games a week for most of the last couple of months, we can take a break here and head to a normal week of training to get ready for next weekend; lead up preparation to a game we have not had in a very long time.”
“We have some things we would like to work on, and we get a chance to do that now as we head down the final stretch ahead of the run into the playoffs.”
