By Kris Smith
The Stars finally were stopped from stealing another two points form the Fife Ice Arena, as the home team found some form and came up with a gritty performance to stop Dundee from keeping them winless at home in the Tayside Derby.
The only loss of the weekend has moved the season record with Fife to 4-3 in favour of Dundee and Egils Kalns netted the Stars lone goal to tie him as the team’s top scorer in Kirkcaldy this season.
The Latvian matched Matt Marquardt’s six points after adding his first goal to his previous five assists from the previous three trips.
The two rivals meet again on Saturday February 22 at the Dundee Ice Arena. Buy your tickets HERE!
Dundee Stars 4 Guildford Flames 3
On Sunday evening, the Stars responded by claiming their third straight win over Paul Dixon’s men.
It was also the Tayside team’s first ever home sweep of the Flames since they joined the Elite League in 2017.
Dundee now lead the season series 4-1 and have secured their first majority of wins over the Surrey side in a single campaign.
Last week, Marquardt, Kevin Dufour and Anthony Beauregard were identified as the club’s top scorers against Guildford this year.
However after Sunday’s result, Marquardt is now the leader with his pair of goals taking him to eight points (5+3) and Dufour (4+3) and Beauregard (1+6) each assisted once to trail him by one.
The overall score now sits at 22-18 in favour of Dundee and the two teams will meet for the final time on the last day of the regular season, down in Guildford.
Point Leaders and Milestones
There was no changes to the points tables this week, expect for Dufour breaking the half century milestone, as his two assists over the weekend put him on 51 points (30+21).
The next player who is likely to break the 50 point mark is Beauregard, the Canadian center has moved onto 49 points with 20 goals and 29 assists from 50 games.
Like Dufour other players on the team made their 50th appearance of the season for the Stars and they include; Drydn Dow, Jordan Cownie, Craig Garrigan, Beauregard, Marquardt, Duncan Speirs, Craig Gans and Alex Leclerc.
Although, some players reached even higher milestones, as Dow played in his 100th Elite League game against Guildford on Sunday and Garrigan featured in his 101st and 102nd matches over weekend.
Also, captain Marquardt pulled on the Stars jersey for the 100th time in Kirkcaldy last Saturday.
Point Streaks
Only two players are carrying point streaks into Week 24 and they are Dufour with four points in the last three games and Kalns, who has a point per game over the same period.
Week 24
There is only one fixture for the Stars this week and it is a road game against a team they haven’t seen in a while.
Sheffield Steelers
This Saturday, Omar Pacha takes his players south to Yorkshire for their second visit of the season to the House of Steel.
Dundee do have a 0-3 record against the current league leaders, who have led the way for most of the season and along the way, they have accumulated a goal difference of +54.
The Stars tested the Steelers right at the start of the season and pushed them all the way to overtime before narrowly losing out in a 6-5 thriller.
Brett Stovin and Justin Maylan have scored the most goals for Dundee against Sheffield with two each and Eric Meland has found the net five times for Aaron Fox’s side against Dundee.
From their three previous fixtures with the Steelers, Dundee have scored on seven of 20 powerplay attempts, giving them a powerplay percentage of 35 per cent and they have also stopped 12 of the 14 man advantages (or 86 per cent) they have allowed to Sheffield.
Last season, Pacha earned his first victory in Sheffield as a coach and the club’s first ever Elite League victory at the FlyDSA Arena when the won 6-3 on January 12 2019.
Saturday’s match in Sheffield will face-off at 7pm.
Thanks to www.starsstats.co.uk/ which was created by Dave Sweetin (@dave_sweetin) and Elite Prospects for making some of the information used in this article available online.
