SHEFFIELD STEEL STINGS 0 - 6 MANCHESTER MAYHEM
Manchester Mayhem boosted their playoff hopes with a 6-0 win over the Sheffield Steel Stings at Ice Sheffield as Karl Nicholson netted all six goals for the Mayhem. Manchester opened the scoring towards the back end of the first period with Karl Nicholson scoring at 12:33 with assists credited to Felicity Gregory and Tom Kimm before the Great British International doubled the lead some thirty-four seconds later for 2-0 and Gregory picked up her second assist of the game.
A scoreless second period saw the Mayhem maintain their two-goal lead heading into the third period as it saw a glut of goals scored by Manchester, and all of them through that man Nicholson. His hattrick came on the power play and the first special teams goal in two years for the Mayhem, with Nicholson skating from his zone into the ‘Stings zone before firing a low shot past Bryan Hackworth for 3-0 at 32.37.
Manchester nearly made it four when Tom Kimm fired a pass out to the blue line for teammate Karl Nicholson to fire, as his shot struck the crossbar and cleared away. However, he would add to the scoreline soon after, having chased down his own clearance up ice and took the puck away from Russ Clarke in the Sheffield zone before slipping it under Hackworth for 4-0 at 34:44. Mayhem’s fifth goal came from Emily McClean playing the puck off the boards and saw the GB man pick it up in the visitors zone with him then netting another.
It saw Manchester’s power play unit being like buses, in the sense you wait for one when a second turns up, and that was the case for the sixth and final goal, where some great work by Tom Kimm saw him fighting for the puck to then have Nicholson take possession and fire past the netminder for 6-0 at 42:37 and have the Mayhem rampant. The victory moves them two points clear of their opponents in the league table, with Manchester facing Cardiff Huskies home and away, facing Cardiff at the end of the month before ending their league campaign in South Wales in early August.
