The collapse of Zoom Airlines has hit Edinburgh Capitals hard - a couple of their import players are due to arrive in the UK only a few hours before the Arena match.

General manager Scott Neil has spent all week desperately trying to make fresh arrangements to get personnel and equipment over from North America.

Neil said: "It has been chaotic, to say the least, but the Zoom situation was not something that could have been foreseen and we have to knuckle down and face up to it.

"Certainly some of our guys will not be totally match-fit and I imagine our coach will have to devise a strategy where we conserve energy and try to shut Sheffield down.

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"We will need to contain them and hit them on the break.

"That is something that we have succeeded at in the past - I was the coach the year before last when we won five out of six Sheffield games!"

Neil accepts his side is well behind Sheffield in terms of overall preparation.

And he adds: "The Steelers have certainly got a solid roster this year. Dan Tessier must have been a hard one to replace, but we've heard Nathan Gillies is a good player.

"Scott Basiuk is a strong defenceman and he will improve their line-up.

"But we have a strong D corps ourselves and in Andrej Rajcak, for one, a highly dangerous forward. He was eighth-top points-scorer in the Danish League (for Hvidovre IK) last year. So we will be trying to cause a few problems."

Steelers' comparatively modest-sized team will come up against some giants in Cardiff Devils' rink on Sunday.

New Canadian defenceman Wes Jarvis IS 6ft 4in tall and he joins captain Brad Voth (6ft 5in), Doug MacIver (6ft 5in) and Mike Hartwick (6ft 3in).

Devils coach Gerad Adam says: "I have recruited a team to win matches on home ice and do pretty well away."

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