Sheffield Steelers should mirror the Tampa Bay Lightning culture of hard and simple ice hockey

The South Yorkshire team's form has been unpredictable, leaving them in third place in the regular season tournament.

But League positioning should not mean a thing now for Steelers, they should just go for broke as Tampa Bay Lightning has so often in the NHL, despite not always pulling up trees in the Eastern Conference.

Tampa has a gritty, high-energy style which Sheffield need to adopt in the run-in.

"You look at the highest level, the team that always wins plays the hardest, the most physical, the hardest defence and usually has the best goalie...and I think we are making strides towards that" said Allen.

"In the last few years, the team that has been most consistent is Tampa Bay Lightning.

"It doesn't matter what place they finish in the standings they are always ready to go, come Plays Offs.

"And they usually go deep so that would be an amazing role team to emulate, going into the final weekend."

The Lightning have won three Stanley Cup championships in 2020 and 2021 and also reached the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015 and in 2022.

Whether Sheffield can indeed copy the Florida club's culture, remains to be seen - and there is still no definitive news on the injury to Marco Vallerand which saw him sent for hospital scans.

Sheffield lost 0-4 at Cardiff Devils on Sunday but, previously, Steelers had shown some promising form.

"For the last couple of weeks we have been playing better, scoring more goals but more importantly playing our system and being on the same page, and playing the right way" said the 32-year-old Canadian.

"This time of the year it is so important to keep it simple, play hard and play defence-first hockey."

Allen concedes that Sheffield got away from a direct and forceful manner of play during the New Year.

"During the time we were inconsistent we were forcing plays a little too much.

"Pucks were not going in the net so we were trying a little too fancy a plays, I think we are back to keeping it simple."

Meanwhile, the total number of spectators at Elite League games in the 2022/23 season exceeded the one million mark as the regular season ended.

The season's highest attendance was 9,368 for Sheffield's Boxing Day thriller against Nottingham Panthers.

Belfast Giants had the highest percentage increase in average crowds this season, up 43 per cent.

Fife Flyers came in second at 19 per cent, with Steelers's Play Off quarter final opponents Manchester Storm up just under 10 per cent.

As usual, Sheffield drew the biggest season-long average in the UK with an average of 6,657, down slightly on last season's 6,693.