Ice hockey: Fife Flyers 2-3 Sheffield Steelers - calm heads hold out in last-gasp drama north of the border

But stopping them does too.

And it was the darker of those two contrasting arts which inched Sheffield Steelers over the line at Fife Flyers on Saturday.

Steelers were clinging on to a 3-2 lead with 29 seconds left when Evan Mosey was called for tripping.

With Fife pulling their goalie for the extra skater, it was a six versus four free-for-all, where calm heads were needed and Sheffield skaters Matt Petgrave and Brandon Whistle showed that composure in abundance.

Coach Aaron Fox said: “We did a good job with that, they (Fife) hardly had any zone time.

“Petgrave won a huge battle off one draw, it was a great play, and then Wis makes a really good play at the blue line to not let that puck in our zone.

“They only ended up in there for the last five seconds.”

And so Steelers’ 30th league game of the campaign – and by far the tightest of the four so far against the Scots – ended with maximum points.

Steelers, strengthened by the towering presence of returnees Davey Phillips and Tomas Pitule, had Mason Mitchell scratched from Saturday’s line-up.

They had an awkward start.

Brendan Connolly sat out a cross-checking penalty and experienced Finnish winger Janne Kivilahti put Flyers in the lead.

Mikael Johansson could have added to Fox’s woes, but his shot thudded into goalie Matt Greenfield rather than the net.

Sheffield rallied and at 13:20 their first line lit the lamp with Daniel Ciampini scoring, assisted by Scott Allen and Brett Neumann.

They could only stay on even terms for two minutes though with Dillon Lawrence again putting Fife ahead.

The only positive before the first break was a third Fife strike which was washed out by officials.

If ‘bus legs’ had been an issue after the 300-mile journey, Sheffield had shaken them off by the middle of the game.

Two defencemen showed the way, Kevin Schulze interchanging passes with Phillips before equalising at 2-2, (31:05.)

Then Ciampini notched his second of the night and his 20th marker of his season, on a shorthanded play after a disputed too-many-men call, to give Steelers the advantage for the first time.

Fife’s desperation to turn the tide around led to consecutive penalties for Chris Lawrence, Brayden Sherbinin and Chris Gerrie.

Frustratingly, Sheffield’s power play could not kill the game off.

With 29 seconds left, Steelers had enough skilled penalty killers to protect the two points.

Fox commented: I didn’t think we got off to a great start.

“The first period was a little too loose and back-and-forth, We just didn’t come ready to start on time.

“But I thought we settled into our game in the second; we could have had a couple more.

“Our power play let us down a bit in the third period – we could have extended (the lead) rather than having to close the game out so tight.

“Overall, the last 40 minutes, we played the game the right way.

“It had been a long trip to Cardiff (the previous Thursday) and a long trip to Fife so we found a way and that’s what we needed to do.”

Attendance: 1085