Sheffield Steelers: Dr Jekyll or Mr Hyde?

That is the question coach Aaron Fox is pondering after a weekend where a split personality was again on view.Going into the home of EIHL champions Belfast Giants is always a barometer of where your team is, in terms of form and title potential.But nobody can be quite completely sure after Friday's 6-2 defeat followed by Saturday's dominating 4-0 victory whether or not Steelers have the consistency they will need, especially with Belfast and Cardiff Devils each having multiple games-in-hand.Optimists will point to the workaholic, team-first culture demonstrated on Saturday.Pessimists will wonder why they were timid and bullied - Fox's own words - 24 hours earlier.One thing is for sure: for Fox to pull this off, he needs to see improved levels consistency and an end to the catalogue of injuries that has blighted the team from the first puck drop.For neutrals, it promises to be a riveting experience watching how it all pans out.On Saturday, 4,007 fans, including a loyal away support, watched top of the league Sheffield control most of the game and punish Giants for pulling their goalie late on.The lightning reactions of Brendan Connolly lit up the lamp just 34 seconds into the game; he was first to the puck after a direct passing move featuring Michael Davies and Mikko Kuukka.A goalless middle period meant the SSE Arena had to wait until 44:54 for the next goal.And it fell to defenceman Davey Phillips, who picked a good time to score only his second goal of the season.Skipper Jonathan Phillips had kept possession of the puck despite the attentions of a back-checking opponent, and fed the puck back to his Great Britain team-mate and he shot through traffic from the right point.Giants were chasing the game and when they pulled their netminder, it was Marco Vallerand who tickled the puck towards goal from the right wing, Nikolai Lemtyugov on hand to make sure it completed its journey into the back of the net.Belfast shot themselves in the foot by losing the puck for one last time, Eric Meland stroking a second empty-netter more than half the length of the ice.Fox wasn't getting carried away by the mixed weekend, recognising the contrasting fortunes his team had experienced."We talked about just being battle-ready (for Saturday) I thought last night (Friday) we got run out of the building and bullied a little bit" he said.Saturday was a night they had been grinding away in the fashion he expects of them: "I think we actually dominated the play for most of the night and didn't give them much offensively."I thought we actually probably could have scored on a couple of other opportunities but it was a huge bounce-back game for us."Our issue in the League right now has been a little bit of consistency."We are a little bit Jekyll and Hyde that way at the moment."We need to figure out we're almost half-way through the year that if you don't show up on certain nights you are not going to win hockey games."I challenged the guys pretty hard and they had the answer; they answered the bell."Opposing coach Adam Keefe said his team had been fatigued by having to endure so many penalty kills - they served eight minors.So many set-backs had hurt their defence and offence, he said.He accepted that Steelers had demonstrated a good "push-back" after the previous encounter.But despite the eventual scoreline, there had been nothing in the game until the final minutes empty-net goals racked up the score."It is a good Sheffield team, we have a plan that we got into every game with - certain things we want to do as a team - and we didn't do them" he said.A final point should be made about Tomas Duba in goal; he chalked up his second shut out of the season.He had been criticised for a couple of goals he conceded on Friday - but like the team, he showed a Jekyll and Hyde comeback.Let's hope it is Jekyll that prevails for the rest of the EIHL campaign.