By Kris Smith
The Stars play their fourth of six group games this evening and are aiming to complete the sweep of the Braehead club in the Challenge Cup Group Stage, after beating them 4-3 last Sunday, in Dundee.
Jeff Mason’s men have already faced the Clan twice this season, once in a 6-3 preseason win in Glasgow and again, last weekend in cup action.
With two wins and 10 goals scored already against Malcolm Cameron’s side, Saturday will be the perfect opportunity for the Stars to get straight back on track, after Thursdays 5-2 defeat to Fife Flyers.
Dundee currently sit joint top of Group A with Fife, as both clubs have a 2-1 record, whilst the Clan are yet to record any points, after two matches.
The Tayside team are also still going to be without Kris Inglis, Craig Garrigan and Ben Sokay as the trio continue their recovery from injury.
Stars Head Coach, Mason started off by discussing Thursday’s loss to the Flyers and said: “It is difficult any time you gift a team three goals in the first period and think they only had four shots.
“We controlled the play and controlled the possession, but we gave them three ‘Grade-A’ chances and they scored on every one of them.
“That said, we generated a lot of offence throughout the game, but we need to find a way to get more traffic to the net and create more second and third looks.
“I thought there were a lot of instances where we were one and done and let Owen settle into the game and he is a quality goaltender once he is settled in.
“You do not often outshoot a team 41-14 and lose a hockey game.
“After our start and the goals that we gave up, and the way we gave them up, it is very difficult to come back from that and it proved to be a mountain too high for us to climb.
“So, it is a lesson to us that you have to be dialled in for 60 minutes and certainly one, that if we had found a way to win then it would have had us sitting nicely in the group, now it is a dogfight.”
Then switching his focus to this weekend’s fixtures, Mason added: “We are continuing to build and I expect both Glasgow and Sheffield to be too very tough opponents.
“We have seen Glasgow twice now, I think we know how we have to play against them to be successful and it is a matter of going out there and executing that.
“Meanwhile, Sheffield will be a top quality side and they will have lots of speed and skill, so we are going to have to limit their time and space, and not give their skilled players a lot of room to operate.
“We need to be very tight defensively and make sure we cash in on our opportunities.”
Dundee captain, Drydn Dow then added: “It is the first loss of the season and we certainly took some lessons from that, but we will use it as motivation for going into Glasgow on Saturday.
“We are eager to get back to it and back into winning ways again.”
Face-off time for tonight’s match in Glasgow is at 7pm.
Banner image: Al Goold.
