By Kris Smith
The Stars and the Storm will meet for the first time this season with Manchester currently third in the league table after winning their opening fixture away to Fife Flyers last weekend and new Head Coach, Mike Flanagan will take charge of his first game against Dundee.
The Altrincham side made a third period comeback and scored the game-winning-goal with only 17 seconds left on the clock as Loren Ulett fired home his fourth goal of the night.
Yesterday evening, the Storm played host to the Cardiff Devils in Challenge Cup Group B action but would be 5-0 down by the end of the second period, before Manchester’s Ryan Hughes took away Ben Bowns’ shutout with 10 minutes left to play.
Last season, Dundee and Manchester split their result with both teams winning all three of their home games and both sides taking seven points from each other.
Last weekend, the Stars pushed Belfast Giants into overtime on Saturday night in Northern Ireland but would concede the deciding goal with only one minute left in the extra period, to lose the match 6-5.
The Taysiders responded on Sunday night at home to Fife and produced a 3-2 victory after a shootout over their Tayside rivals, with Dundee failing to put the game to bed earlier as they created plenty of chances to score.
Jake Elmer, Brendan Harms (2), Kameron Kielly and Cole MacDonald all found the back of the net in Belfast as the Stars bounced back from falling 1-0 behind in the opening 30 seconds to take a 3-1 lead after the first period.
The Giants would then win the second session 3-1 to send both teams into the third stanza tied at 4-4 and after going behind again, Dundee replied with a powerplay goal to keep the score level at 5-5.
On Sunday, Domenic Alberga’s powerplay strike had the Stars ahead before Fife equalised in first 20 minutes but Kielly’s second of the weekend, in what was his debut weekend after arriving on Friday, restored the lead after 40 minutes.
Tom Coolen’s side again tied it up in the third period but after a scoreless five minutes of overtime, only Johnny Curran was able to beat Jarrett Fiske in the Dundee goal with his penalty as Elmer and Keanu Yamamoto both hit the twine to claim the extra point for the Stars.
After four games, of 12 in the group stage, Dundee sit second on five points, one behind Sunday’s opponents Belfast, who have picked up a maximum six points from their first three contests.
Looking ahead to this weekend’s games and starting off with tonight’s league opener against Manchester, Stars Head Coach, Marc LeFebvre said: “The big thing for us is this first league game tonight, it is our only league for a while and we want to get off to the best possible start in the league.
“That said, Manchester are no slouches, they have a lot of guys back from last season and they are a good hockey team, so we have to be prepared.
“For us, two points is a must because as I said it is our only league game for a while and so when we go into the full swing of the league in a few weeks, we want to make sure we already have two points on the board.”
Face-off for tonight’s home game against Manchester is at 7pm.
All images: Derek Black.
