The Sheffield Steelers scored twice early and twice late to win 5-1 before a delighted home crowd of 8,798 at Utilita Arena. In between it was mostly Sparta Prague on the offence, but they were only able to beat Matthew Greenfield once on 46 shots.

Sheffield got off to a dream start, scoring twice in the game’s first four minutes.

Less than two minutes in, it was Joel Janatuinen driving to the net with the puck from the right wing and sending a bad-angle shot that went off goaltender Jakub Kovář’s arm and into the net.

Just 13 seconds later, the Steelers went to the powerplay and they eventually cashed in. Off the rush, Mikko Juusola’s shot from the high slot seemed to be stopped by Kovář, but the puck fell out from between the goalie’s arm and body and barely slid over the line for the 2-0 goal.

At that point, Sparta had only one shot on goal, but by the end of the first period, they had 17 to Sheffield’s 11. However, Greenfield remained unbeaten.

Sparta’s Ondřej Mikliš received a double-minor in the last minute of the opening period, but it was Sparta that got on the board with a shorthanded goal in the third minute of the second period. After Sparta had iced the puck, some miscommunication on the Steelers powerplay allowed Tomáš Hyka to be first on the puck below the goal line, and he found Ondřej Najman in the slot, who beat Greenfield with a quick shot over the glove.

In the latter half of the second period, each team was assessed a major penalty and game misconduct. First, it was Sheffield’s Brien Diffley for a high hit, but Sparta were unable to capitalize. Then, in the last minute of the period, Sparta’s Kryštof Hrabík was sent off for boarding.

Early in the third period, the Steelers’ Daniel Leavens had an apparent powerplay goal called back on video review due to offside, but later, now with a 5-on-3 advantage, Leavens scored a goal that did count, finishing off a passing play with a tap-in at the side of the net.

Trailing by two, Sparta pulled Kovář for an extra attacker with three minutes left but Dominic Cormier and Marc-Olivier Vallerand both scored empty-net goals to seal the victory.