By Kris Smith
The Stars were 3-2 winners on home ice last night, which makes it three wins in a row on Boxing Day for Dundee over Fife and they now aim to claim their third away victory against the Flyers, this season.
Yesterday saw the two Tayside rivals battle it out in Dundee and after a scoreless first period, the Stars would open the scoring on 25 minutes, when Johan Eriksson provided a lovely finish from the middle of the slot, to beat Shane Owen at his right side.
However, the Flyers would respond 10 minutes later as Janne Laakkonen cut out a pass in the Dundee end, before playing the puck to Janne Kivilahti, who slipped his shot between the legs of Anton Svensson.
Fife would then take the lead just two minutes into the third period as Jonas Emmerdahl scored with a lofted finish into the top right corner, but the home team would equalise just over a minute later.
Carter Folk and Ben Sokay had a two-on-one break and rather than pass, Sokay decided to shoot and would find the top corner of Owen’s goal.
Then with five minutes left to play, Ryan Verrier would net the winner as his low shot flew through traffic before going under the Flyers keeper, giving the Stars the 3-2 win and the pair of points.
Last night also saw a return to action for Ben Brown and Chris Lijdsman following their recovery from injuries and that leaves only Hugo Reinhardt left on the Dundee injury list.
Despite winning two of the three meetings in Kirkcaldy already this season, the Stars last trip ended in heartbreak as after two 4-4 draws in both legs of the Challenge Cup Quarter-Finals, the Flyers would go on to progress to the final four after a shootout.
Speaking after last night’s victory, Stars Head Coach, Jeff Mason said: “We played the way we needed to play.
“I did not think we were generating a lot offensively but structurally we were okay and as the game wore on, I thought we took over that game, especially in the second and third.
“We certainly could have had a lot more goals, our powerplay was threatening a lot but just not finding the back of the net.
“So, it is about playing the right way, starting strong, being structurally sound defensively and finding ways to put pucks behind Shane Owen.”
Face-off is at 7pm tonight in Kirkcaldy.
All images: Derek Black.
