Steelers: Scrooge Lehman better than ever

Jody Lehman was the star of the show last night in the Bay.

And not just because he turned away 29 Cardiff shots in a man of the match performance to blank the Devils again.

Lehman was involved in a scuffle at the end of the game with Cardiff captain Brad Voth, which started an all-out brawl as the benches emptied and over six hours worth of penalty minutes were added up.

One thing's for sure, the Elite League's director of hockey Andy French will have a busy week dealing with the fallout.

The post-game ruckus overshadowed the result and a great night's work by the Sheffield stopper and his team, who did a professional job on their rivals for the third time in the Bay this year. The Devils have only scored twice on Lehman in the season series, which the Steelers have dominated 4-0.

Even more remarkable was that Lehman collected his third shutout in the last five games.

Stingy? Ebeneezer Scrooge gave away more than that in December.

“Traditionally he’s a guy who tends to get off to a slow start and I think this is the best start I’ve seen him have, playing against him and coaching him,” said Steelers coach Dave Matsos in an interview with skysports.com.

“He’s playing great and getting better as the year goes on. He’s got a good defence in front of him and our forwards are getting back too. Defensively, we’re quite a stingy team.

“On any given night he gives us a chance and we’ve got that trust in him right now, just like he’s trusting the guys playing in front of him.”

Matsos knew that a fight was always on the cards because of the recent history between the two teams and ill feeling between several players on either side.

“Cardiff’s never an easy rink to come and play in,” Matsos added.

“They’ve been playing a good brand of hockey lately. I spoke to Paul Thompson after the Coventry game and he said that the Blaze were lucky to come out 4-2 up.

“It seems that everybody ups their level of play when we come in and Cardiff have played great against us. The games have been tight and not high scoring. They’re competitive and aggressive and we expected nothing else.”

Matsos: Every second counts

Heading into Saturday night's showdown against Coventry, Dave Matsos has been focusing on thwarting the Blaze powerplay.

Of course the best way to stop the powerplay is to stay out of the box, but when the inevitable happens PK units need to step up.

And in an interview with skysports.com, Matsos revealed how the Steelers have been preparing.

“This week in practice we’ve emphasised the importance of making line changes on the penalty kill,” he said.

“If you’re on the ice for 15 seconds and you’re not tired, it doesn’t matter – you’re coming off the ice and we’re going to get fresh legs on. If we can make those quick changes and get through five units in a two-minute powerplay it will be a very positive thing for our team.“

The Steelers are one of only two teams to beat Coventry in the league this season, winning 5-1 at home on September 13.

However, Matsos is expecting a much closer game this time as he goes head-to-head with Paul Thompson.

“Everybody seems to raise their level of play when Coventry comes into town,” Matsos said.

“We know that we need to stay out of the box, but you’re never going to make it through the game without taking some minor penalties. The way that their powerplay is set up, I think our penalty kill has to be very active, very aggressive and very quick.”