Guildford Flames 1  Sheffield Steelers 3

By Peter Moore

Guildford Flames suffered an opening night home loss in the Elite League after going down to the visiting Sheffield Steelers at the Spectrum on Sunday.

Following Saturday’s cup loss to Cardiff Devils, Flames were looking to bounce back, but were undone by a brace of goals from the visitors in the third period.

An outstanding performance from Flames netminder Eamon McAdam wasn’t enough with Steelers picking up a win on the road.

The clubs traded goals in the opening period with Matt Alvaro’s powerplay marker opening the scoring for the hosts at 8:26, only for Sheffield to quickly level through Josh Nicholls just over a couple of minutes later.

Steelers had the bulk of the play in the second period, with McAdam stopping 16 shots.

Halfway through the third period, Sheffield took the lead for the first time in the contest when Robert Dowd netted on the powerply.

With three minutes remaining, Dowd bagged his second of the night to clinch victory for Sheffield despite McAdam turning away 36 of 39 shots.