‘Electric’ DeLuca helps Steelers silence Storm
HEAD COACH Aaron Fox praised Anthony DeLuca’s “electric play” as his four goals helped Sheffield Steelers dish out a 7-0 Boxing Day hammering to Manchester Storm.
The 24-year-old had a hand in all seven goals, assisting on efforts elsewhere from Brendan Connolly and Marc-Olivier Vallerand (2).
The somewhat predictable outcome – the Steelers have now beaten the Storm on all four of their visits to South Yorkshire this season – ensures Fox’s team remain top of the Elite League regular season standings, two points ahead of Cardiff Devils who won 2-1 after a shoot-out at Guildford Flames.
“That was a fun one tonight,” said Fox. “A huge crowd, a great atmosphere and then DeLuca being involved in all seven of our goals, including four of his own – it was pretty electric play from him tonight. When he (DeLuca) is engaged and his feet are moving for the full 60 minutes he is an electric player. But that line of Connolly, DeLuca and Vallearand – three really good players, who have a lot of chemistry together and play with so much pace, was fun to watch.”
On a day to remember, DeLuca got the ball rolling when he backhanded over the shoulder of Matt Ginn when on a breakaway with just 3.15 on the clock.
Two more minutes had barely elapsed before DeLuca doubled his tally with a piledriver into the top left-hand corner thanks to a neat feed from Jonathan Phillips.
Manchester kept it tight and kept themselves in the game until just after the halfway point when a mistake by a bad pass out from Ginn saw the puck fall to DeLuca who set up Connolly to fire into an unguarded net.
Just over three minutes later it was game over when Connolly and DeLuca combined superbly to set up Vallerand with the simplest of finishes.
A sweet reverse pass from DeLuca then set up Vallerand for his second from a tight angle at 41.07, before the hat-trick moment came for the former courtesy of coolly-taken penalty shot.
Appropriately it was DeLuca who wrapped up the evening when his slapshot from the right circle evaded replacement goalie Adam Long.