Sheffield Steelers 2OT3 Cardiff Devils

Sheffield without Les Mille as Mike Peron returns from injury, Cardiff at full strength.

A fast, exciting and end-to-end game for the 3,926 fans which Cardiff won in the final second of the game when Burgoyne fired home in a scramble (64:59). Both red (goal) and green (end of game) lights showed togther, but it is impossible for the red light to come on after the green light, so by however small a fraction of a second, the goal was in time. This didn't stop home netminder Jayme Platt talking his way to a misconduct plus a game misconduct after the buzzer.

This was Sheffield's best performance for some time but Cardiff were always the stronger and made their longer bench tell, taking the body all night long. Steelers looked to have clinched it when Marc Lefebvre and Gerad Adams potted rebounds 106 seconds apart at the start of thre final period. But John Craighead deflected home a Dave Matsos slapshot (55:39) with Mike Peron sitting an interference penalty to force the extra session.

Sheffield started brightly and Man of the Match Jeff Christian was making a nuisance of himself around the Devils' net, Jason Cugnet doing well to keep out his deflections.

Just before nine minutes Nathan Rempel - who scored both Devils' goals on their last visit here - got away down the right and skated across Platt. The goalie made the stop but Cullen passed the rebound back across the face of the goal to John Cullen who miscued badly.

In the dying seconds of the first period Cullen got away two-on-one but Daryl Andrews took out the pass.

Early in the second Mike Peron got away two-on-one and elected to shoot with Cugnet making the save. Phil Hill had time and space on the left but Platt got his body in the way and Steelers rushed to the far end where Lefebvre fired in from the left. Cugnet lost track of the puck when prone and Gavin Farrand lifted the puck home only to find the ref had whistled play down.

Matsos broke through from the right but the puck ran off his stick at the crease. Three minutes later Craighead's backhand on the doorstep was only just frozen before it crossed the line. But it was no surprise when Devils took the lead, Warren Tait netting a rebound from Hill's left wing shot (34:11).

With Sheffield killing a Lefebvre hooking penalty, a long pass found Christian behind the Devils' defence. Cugnet padded away the first shot but was a shade fortunate to see the second bounce off his pads to safety. However Platt was the busier goalie as the period drew to a close.

Lefebvre bagged a rebound from Christian's left wing shot (41:07), then Adams buried his own rebound after skating out from behind the net (42:53) and suddenly Cardiff were in trouble.

The next five minutes belonged to Sheffield but Devils kept pressing and were looking the stronger as the home side relied on breakaways.

Then Peron took an interference penalty at the Cardiff end and Craighead made the powerplay count to force overtime.

Sheffield created the better chances in overtime, but with the clock counting down Devils were pressing hard and Burgoyne snatched that late, late winner.