Blaze hit by eight-goal blitz as mistakes prove costly
THE Genting Casino Coventry Blaze were left shell-shocked after an 8-3 defeat to the Sheffield Steelers at the Skydome Arena.
Despite taking the lead in the game through their man-of-thematch Charles Corcoran (4.20), Blaze were pegged back quickly when John Armstrong scored on a breakaway at 6.45.
While short-handed, Sheffield captain Jonathan Phillips put his side 2-1 up (9.19) before Nikolia Lemtyugov made it 3-1 on the powerplay (13.09).
After Tanner Eberle registered for 4-1 (16.13), Blaze’s Canadian netminder Jamie Phillips was pulled from the net with Brit Jordan Hedley replacing him for the second night running.
With his first of two, Steelers’ man-of-the-match Marek
Troncinsky beat Hedley for the first time at 21.48 to make it 5-1.
Despite the scoreline, Coventry continued to fight and were rewarded when Corcoran scored his second to make it 5-2 (30.55).
A second short-handed goal for the Steelers came on 48.12 when Eric Meland registered, closely followed by another powerplay goal through Brendan Connolly (50.12).
With a consolation strike, Alex Forbes made it 7-3 (50.31) before the scoring was wrapped up by Troncinsky (58.56) for a final score of 8-3.
Blaze head coach Danny Stewart said: “It wasn’t very good. I can’t really repeat what I said in the dressing room, but it’s not good enough.
“We made big mistakes and it cost us. We created some chances which is a positive but other than that we stunk the