How Sheffield Steelers recovered from frustrating penalty call to ease past Glasgow Clan

Sheffield Steelers' coach Aaron Fox and his side looked set to spit their collective dummy out when the ref called a "too-many-men" penalty, during Saturday's game against Glasgow Clan.

Maybe it didn't seem that big a deal at the time, after all, Steelers were leading 3-1 in a game they were utterly dominating.

But Sheffield had let a 4-1 lead slip in their previous match and Clan had already scored once on the power play, in that same period. The Scots, desperate for a win after a lousy season so far, duly seized the opportunity to close the gap to 3-2.

As the second interval arrived, some of the 6,177 fans must have wondered if a clearly-rattled Steelers would lose their focus.

Quite the reverse, in fact, the team routing Glasgow with a 3-0 third-period flourish and a 6-2 win.

In a sweeping understatement, Fox later said the too-many-men call "was a little disappointing." He added: "I have never seen a too-many-men call with four guys on the ice...that was a first for me."

The penalty had threatened to undermine Steelers' psychology and Fox said: "It is frustrating. It left a little bit of a bad taste in the mouth for sure. But that final 20 minutes were absolute domination so that's how you bounce back and close a hockey game."

Former Steelers' goalie John Muse had endured a painful first period, he was poleaxed by a bullet drive from Martin Latal, after 17 minutes.

It hadn't been plain sailing for the American before that, either. It took Brandon McNally just 19 seconds to flip the puck off his left leg and into the net.

Muse's teammates were passive across two-thirds of the ice, allowing Sheffield to dictate the play. And the goalie was well beaten by a slapshot from Matt Petgrave as Sheffield doubled their advantage.

Then came that strange middle period. Sheffield had an embarrassment of opportunities yet lost the session 2-1. Mathieu Roy may not have the energy he used to have, but he brought the best out of Matt Greenfield before flipping home a rebound on the power play.

No problem, thought Steelers fans, as Petgrave stepped up a gear and engineered a goal for Robert Dowd for 3-1. In search of the perfect goal, Sheffield became overly elaborate. And when the referee gave that too-many-men penalty Mitch Jones scored the Clan's second PP goal.

It may only be November, but titles can be influenced by such moments. At any rate, it was Glasgow who then fell foul of the refereeing, shipping in now fewer than 16 minutes worth of penalties.

That signalled two home PP goals, Adam Raška and Brett Neumann finally giving the scoreboard the margin Sheffield's authority had merited. With three minutes left, Scott Allen ended his recent goal drought with the Steelers' sixth.