Sheffield Steelers' Brandon McNally on international radar with former Stanley Cup winner watching on

And the gaze belongs to a man McNally very much wants to impress.

He is Mike Keenan, the man who coached New York Rangers to the Stanley Cup in 1994 and won the KHL at Metallurg Magnitogorsk in 2014.

In October the 73-year-old former Team Canada coach was named boss of the Italy national side, providing him with a chance to lead the host country toward the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.

Last weekend, Keenan was at Sheffield Arena scouting McNally for the Italian national side.

The Steeler has played 16 times for Italy, including last year when he paired up with then-Steeler Tommaso Traversa.

Keenan wanted to check up on the skater with an eye on the 2023 IIHF World Championship Division I Group A tournament at Nottingham, from 29 April to 5 May.

If McNally gets the nod he will be up against some of his Steeler team mates on the Great Britain side along with Lithuania, South Korea, Poland, and Romania.

McNally is currently eighth top scorer with Sheffield, with seven goals and nine assists in 27 games.

MORE: Steelers star tells team mates what he wants to see against Cardiff Devils

In what was a difficult weekend for Steelers, his club coach Aaron Fox commended McNally's line with Tomas Pitule and Mason Mitchell.

Meanwhile, Steelers' old boy Mathieu Roy has left Glasgow Clan.

The winger requested to leave the Clan after recently receiving a "very good long-term opportunity in hockey back in North America."

The 36-year-old joined the Clan back in 2019 having iced for Sheffield, where he was known for his warrior-like persistence around the net.

Roy looked short of energy in his last appearance at Sheffield Arena, the November game which Sheffield won 6-2.

Clan associate coach Dyson Stevenson said: “Roy was a very important piece to the puzzle, it’s really sad to see him go as he was a forward that played top minutes for us.

“A very good job opportunity for the future became available to him, he came in and told me of his situation and was very upset with having to leave a team especially because everything is starting to head in the right direction.

“However, he is a veteran player with a family and he thought it was very important to put his family and future first and I think that is very respectable.

“This is obviously a blow to our line-up, but we have been dealing with adversity all season and we won’t stop fighting to make the team the best we possibly can.

“The organisation and the players respect Roy’s decision to put his family and future first.”