The Sheffield Steelkings gave their league title hopes a huge boost with a 5-0 win over Manchester Mayhem at iceSheffield on Saturday.
The Mayhem team travelled short of a number of regular players and only had the minimum 5+1 available. This meant that everybody had to remain on the ice for the whole game with no line changes so it was always going to be a bit of an uphill struggle against the league leaders.
Three goals for the Steelkings in the first period pretty much killed the game as a contest and one more in both the second and third period saw them romp to a 5-0 victory.
The goals were shared among 5 different scorers - Ben O'Brien, Jake Oakley, Daniel Clarke, John Plummer, and Matt Clarkson – and netminders Jonathan Gill and Andrew Jackson backstopped the Kings to their 4th shutout of the season.
On Sunday, Peterborough Phantoms beat the Steelstings development team 0-9 at iceSheffield to move into second place in the league table.
The BPIHL’s top scorer for the season so far Gary Farmer scored 7 goals, with D-Jay Hall and Callum Shakespeare contributing the others. Daniel Lee recorded a 3-shot shut out for his third clean sheet of the season.
The weekend results mean that the Steelkings are now three points ahead at the top of the league table with 11 points and 2 games left to play.
Peterborough Phantoms move into second place with 8 points from 5 games, level with Cardiff Huskies, who have played 2 games more.
Last season’s champions Cardiff are now out of the title race as they only have one game left in the regular season so Peterborough are the only team able to catch Sheffield and possibly snatch the crown from them.
The Phantoms take on the Steelkings this Saturday 12th July in what will effectively be a title decider for this season’s league championship. If Sheffield beat Peterborough in that game, they will be uncatchable in top spot.
