Sheffield Steelers: Under-fire goaltender 'must gain back trust'

The 28-year-old from the Czech Republic has struggled in his last two starts, both at Manchester Storm.

Steelers lost 6-2 and 5-2 with Kantor in net there - and some fans have pointed the finger in his direction.

Asked about Kantor's most recent performance in Altrincham, Aaron Fox said: It wasn't great. I think he'd like to have a couple of saves back.

"He might be fighting a little bit at the moment, confidence is critical for a goalie and it has been a tough stretch for him."

But does the team boss still retain confidence in him?

"It is one of those things where you have got to battle back and gain our trust back, if you will,” Fox said.

"I am not a goalie, I don't know the mental side of that, I know it is a tough position to play and you are the last line of defence and need to be counted on every night - so let's go from there."

Kantor, who cut a lonely figure on Sunday when he sat near the Dundee Stars fans at Sheffield Arena, has a 82.79 save per centage, compared to Tomas Duba's 90.13.

Kantor's goals-against average is 4.45; Duba's 2.46.

Fox denies that his table-topping side have an inherent problem playing in the small surrounds of Manchester.

He said they had outshot Storm heavily in both visits, yet the game went in "the wrong direction" on both nights, he admitted.

"I don't think we have played as bad as the scores have looked there, I didn't like our mental awareness (last Friday) going into that hockey game, I felt we were mentally tired and mentally drained.

"We talked about it after the game, to be fair, I didn't watch that game back, we agreed as a group that before we left the building on Friday night that we were going to close the door on that because that was one of those games you don't want to creep into how we are really playing. We won five on the bounce up to there."

As for future trips across the Pennines: "If you are going to learn how to play in that building it's good to have a couple of Cup games to do that with.

"We will be able to be a little bit smarter when we go back up there."

*Manchester Storm goalie Matt Ginn has a 92.95 save percentage after nine games.