Sheffield Steelers captain Jonathan Phillips insists his side are on a revenge mission when they take on Nottingham Panthers in the Challenge Cup final first leg on Thursday night.

Phillips admits the team are still "hurting" from their defeat to their bitter rivals in last season's Elite League play-offs, after which the Panthers went on to lift the trophy.

Ahead of the first leg at the Hallam FM Arena, Phillips said: "We have played very well against Nottingham this year. So far we have had their number so we should be confident going into the game.

"However, we could have said the same last year after dominating the Panthers in the regular season before they turned us over in the play-offs and that still hurts. I am not afraid of saying we need payback for the way we felt after that series. We owe the Panthers a big game.

"We must come out of the blocks hard, harder than we have all year. Those first three or four shifts that every line has just have to be at 100%, nothing else will do.

"This game is massive for us, we can't leave anything in the room. We have to give our all. On Thursday morning if one single player can walk without pain, can get out of bed easily or even think of going to the gym then they didn't give enough on Wednesday night.

"That has to be our gameplan - out-work, out-battle the Panthers, give them nothing, limit our mistakes and capitalise on our chances. We need to be ruthless, we will show everyone just how much this means to us."

Panthers go into the clash on the back of a 6-2 home defeat to Belfast Giants and coach Mike Ellis admitted: "We didn't play well and maybe the team were starting to think about the final.

"But the guys know what it takes to win a final. We won the last championship which was available and we now have a chance to win the next one.

"We need to work hard and focus on having a good game and not to get sucked into the hype. It's a six-period game and you cannot afford to get too far ahead of yourselves."

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