Sheffield Steelers v Fife Flyers: Steelers ease to 6-0 victory

Goaltender Barry Brust, who had criticised his own previous performances in a Star interview this week, stopped Fife on the few occasions they penetrated, to help the team achieve their first shut out of the season.

Steelers started the one-sided evening without injured forwards John Armstrong, Martin Látal and Brendan Connolly yet with Brandon Whistle arriving from Leeds Chiefs, they still had one more skater than the Scots.

Fife, who had harvested just two points from a possible ten before arriving in Sheffield, focused mainly on blocking up the middle and keeping Sheffield snipers to the perimeter as much as possible.

On several occasions, they would struggle to clear their own zone as shots on Shane Owen came in from every angle available.

Robert Dowd had a goal disallowed for high sticks after six minutes and Marco Vallerand struck the outside of Flyers' post two minutes later.

Fife's marking failed for the first time at 12:03 though, Evan Mosey's enterprising pass set up defenceman Kevin Schulze for his first goal of the campaign.

Owen's glove drove a Justin Hodgman drive away but the netminder was beaten for a second time when Vallerand's energetic probing helped engineer a Tanner Eberle goal for 2-0.

Fife had one first-period moment of offensive creativity, Matt Carter firing just wide after some inventive stickwork.

Three precise passes opened up Fife's defence in a torrid middle session for Todd Dutiaume's team.

Hodgman's cross-ice pass on the power play allowed Matias Sointu to ring up 3-0, while Mosey again became the provider for Adrian Daxrud-Danielsen to add another.

Then Hodgman picked out Sointu - the Finn tapping home his seventh goal in four games.

Mosey and Hodgman moved to 0+3 each, and Fife edged towards a long and miserable trip home.

The Flyers are a young, inexperienced side and it was certainly facing a steep learning curve. They'd faced now fewer than 45 shots in 40 minutes.

You could have forgiven Steelers for conserving their energy in the last period, but they continued to dominate possession and were convincing in the penalty kill.

DeLuca wrapped the game up with a sixth at the death.

Hopefully Sheffield will have plenty left in the tank for the visit of Belfast Giants on Saturday.