By Kris Smith
The Stars are aiming to get their first points up on the league table but face a red-hot Steelers side who are unbeaten in their domestic season so far but their crammed schedule could make it more difficult to maintain their perfect record.
Aaron Fox’s side are yet to lose a league or Challenge Cup game and have won eight straight matches after suffering an opening day defeat in the Champions Hockey League, but the Steelers have produced a few monumental upsets on the continental stage so far this year.
Last night, the Stars were in Braehead and suffered a 5-2 defeat in game that was plagued with penalties, missed chances and saw the Taysiders punished on powerplays.
At the end of the first period Glasgow Clan led 1-0 after Liam Finlay’s shot was deflected past Richard Sabol in the Dundee net, just as the Stars were about to return to full strength.
In the middle session, the home team piled on the pressure and ran out into a 4-0 lead as Felix Pare, Rylan Schwartz and Keaton Jameson all found the back of the net, with Jameson adding a second powerplay goal of the night for Glasgow.
Just before the final break, Dundee lost defenseman Xavier Pouliot to a game misconduct for fighting and being the aggressor of the altercation after he stepped up to Glasgow’s Nick Prkusic who had just hit Kameron Kielly face first into the boards.
In the third period, Kielly would then stop Landon Bow from recording a clean sheet as he fired straight through the Clan keeper on a breakaway, which he created himself after blocking a shot at the other end of the ice.
Jake Elmer then cut the lead to 4-2 as he capitalised on a powerplay for Dundee with a quick finish into the top right corner from the right wing but as Dundee gambled in the final minutes, Tyson McLellan would score into an empty net to claim the victory for Glasgow.
Meanwhile, the Steelers were playing host to their rivals, Nottingham Panthers last night and found themselves 2-0 down in the second period before Daniel Leavens would get them off the mark.
Leavens would then light the lamp again in the third, this time to make it 3-2 as the Panthers had taken a 3-1 lead into the final period but Kevin Tansey would draw Sheffield level with less than three minutes to play.
In overtime, it then took less than two minutes of play for Robert Dowd to win the extra point for Sheffield and to keep their unbeaten run alive.
Speaking after last night’s loss in Glasgow, Stars Head Coach, Marc LeFebvre said:
“Any momentum we had tonight was killed by those penalties, I thought we battled and competed hard for the most part and if we are going to get ourselves out of this then it will be competing like that.
“We are going through a bit of lull but we have to compete, our second periods need to get better and for some reason we are giving up two or three goals in the second period.
“We have had pretty good starts, we come out hard in the first and we have good third periods but by then we are chasing games and we cannot be chasing games after the second period every week.”
Discussing tonight’s visit from the Steelers, he continued: “This is a massive test for us and they set the benchmark for the league, especially last season but also in the Champions League this season as they have shown what they can do.
“It is one of those games where you have to be prepared to play, you cannot take any shifts off because they will make you pay.
“They have a lot of guys back from their championship winning team and we will need to match that level and be better than that in terms of how we play if we want to win, that means playing simple hockey.
“Against these teams you cannot do the razzle-dazzle nonsense that we have seen in our last few games, we have to keep it very simple and when we do the simple things we have success, so we have to get back to that.
“We will not be a pretty hockey team, we need to be prepared to grind things out and if we want to win anything this year then we will have to find a way to beat teams like Sheffield.”
Tonight’s home game will face-off at 5pm.
All images: Derek Black.
