AARON FOX believes Sheffield Steelers’ winger Ryan Tait is getting his just rewards as his confidence and self-belief continues to soar.
The 30-year-old American popped up with the late game-winning goal to sink hosts’ Manchester Storm at the AO Arena on Sunday, maintaining the Steelers’ promising start to their Challenge Cup campaign in a 4-3 win.
The winner with just 111 seconds remaining came courtesy of a slick move involving Evan Jasper and Adam Rockwood and was Tait’s second of the night, the other two Steelers’ goals coming from fellow American forward Tim Gettinger.
Tait’s double took his points tally for the season to six goals and three assists in 11 league and Cup games.
Steelers’ head coach Fox felt Tait didn’t always get what he deserved during his first season with the team in 2025-26 after making the switch from Guildford Flames, but is pleased to see the impact he is having during the early part of the current Motorpoint Elite League campaign.
“We brought Tater back for a reason,” said Fox, of a player who contributed 14 goals and 36 assists in 70 games last season.
“We felt the numbers he put up last year were probably the bare minimum of what he could have achieved with the amount of offence he created.
“Sometimes there’s just puck luck that goes into scoring goals and getting points, and I don’t think he had much of that last year.
“He was one of our best players over the last 10 or 20 games (last season) and he was getting on the scoresheet a lot then as well.
“It’s great to see him playing with confidence and scoring some big goals for us.”
It was Gettinger - scorer of two goals in Saturday’s 5-0 home win in the league over Glasgow - who again broke the deadlock with just 4.33 on the board, when he converted from close range after good work from Mitchell Balmas.
Balmas was involved again when the Steelers doubled their lead at 14.22, combining with Rockwood to set up Tait for his first of the night.
Manchester halved the deficit through Kyle Maksimovich’s power play strike just over three minutes later, but Gettinger’s second restored the two-goal cushion at 25.39.
But the game was tied going into the third when Storm rallied, first making it a one-goal game again through Dennis Busby in the 36th minute, before a second power play goal of the night - this time from Brady Gilmour - pulled them level with just 20 seconds of the period remaining.
Cances came and went at both ends and overtime looked likely, until Tait fired home low past Drew DeRidder from 10 yards out.