By Kris Smith
The Stars are fighting to arrest their eight-game losing streak and get back on track as they try to close the five-point gap to Glasgow, following last night’s 3-2 road defeat to the Clan.
The home team took the lead after only 72 seconds as Tyson McLellan found a way in behind the Dundee defence and dispatched the puck past Jarrett Fiske but the Stars thought they had responded to the early setback instantly.
Dundee went straight on the attack and forward, Spencer Naas batted a loose puck back across goal for Zach Tsekos to smack home out of mid-air but the goal would be disallowed be the referees for an adjudged high-stick by Naas on the pass.
The Taysiders did eventually level the score on 14 minutes as they cashed in on their second powerplay of the night as Jake Elmer finished high over the shoulder of his ex-teammate, Lucas Brine.
Although, the match would only be level for one minute as Cole Ully restored Glasgow’s lead straight away and Corey Neilson’s men then added a third goal in the 19th minute as Ully netted once more but a lengthy review then took place and despite a Clan player being in the goal crease of Fiske, the goal stood.
After a second scoreless period, the Stars came out and pushed hard to find a route back into the match but were struggling to keep their Scottish rivals under any pressure.
However, just seconds after the Clan had killed off another penalty, Brett Gravelle would find a similar finish to Elmer in 53rd minute and he beat Brine up high from the right flank.
Dundee then threw everything forward to find another equaliser but the Clan kept clearing their lines and held on to claim their fifth straight victory over the Stars, with four coming by a one-goal margin.
Speaking after last night’s defeat in Glasgow, Stars Head Coach, Marc LeFebvre said: “There was two things, mainly in the first period I did not think we played that badly but we cannot give up three goals.
“There is one period that is absolutely killing us right now, like their first goal, we turnover the puck inside their blue line two minutes into the game and it ends up in the back of our net on the rush.
“Their second goal, we are puck watching in our own zone and we have to be aware of where guys are on the ice and they made us pay now and they made us pay a few weeks ago on their fourth goal because we were puck watching.
“The third goal, obviously I challenged it and I have to talk to the league about what they saw there and what they thought that call should have been.
“We thought the guy was on top of our goalie and he could not move to try and make the save but that call went against us and we had to try and pick ourselves.
“Our powerplay was one for eight tonight and we need to get at least another goal off of that because you need to be about 25 per cent when they give you that many chances.
“It was not due to a lack of effort, we battled but tomorrow we need to get more pucks towards the net and get more bodies to the net front, we are having trouble scoring right now.
“We need guys to find some ways to score some goals here because six goals in four games, well you are not going to win many hockey games, especially when you are not keeping them out of your net.
“Tomorrow is a new day and we need to keep battling, we cannot put our heads down, we have to keep working hard and find a way to get us going in the right direction but that has to come soon.”
Face-off for tonight’s home game is at 5pm.
All images: Derek Black.
