By Kris Smith
The Stars look to get back on track and can claim their first win in the conference with a victory over local rivals the Fife Flyers.
Dundee travel to Kirkcaldy on Saturday night hoping to get their first win at the Fife Ice Arena and their first in the Gardiner Conference, Fife have beaten the Stars twice out of the three meetings the teams have had so far this season.
The Stars fell 6-2 to Todd Dutiame’s men in the Scottish Challenge Cup Semi-Finals back in September before claiming a 7-5 win in their home leg of the Challenge Cup group stage. However the Flyers reclaimed their bragging rights in the local derby when they swept aside the Stars 5-1 in Kirkcaldy.
Once again Dundee’s injury problems will disadvantage them, they go into this weekend without at least four players as Joey De Concilys and Jimmy Jensen could return to the line-up but are still a doubt ahead of this weekend’s fixtures.
Omar Pacha will hope for the return of Jensen as he has already bagged a hat-trick in one game against the Kirkcaldy team, with Chris Lawrence and Johan Andersson grabbing two goals against their biggest rivals and Jordan Cownie, Malcolm Gould and Riley Stadel scoring one each across the three games.
Danick Gauthier, Peter LeBlanc, Liam Heelis and Carlo Finucci have already put multiple goals past travois Fullerton and will look to do the same as they want to continue their strong home form against the Stars.
However Dutiame’s Flyers have lost their last two games, with their last win coming in overtime against the Sheffield Steelers in October. Meanwhile Dundee lost their last game on Wednesday in Sheffield 8-2, following their last win against the Manchester Strom in a shootout victory the weekend before.
Dundee Comets defenceman, Kris Inglis, who is on a 2-way contract with the Stars has had to step up in this challenging time for Dundee and he said: “The amount of injuries our team has experienced in the past couple weeks has been unbelievable but it of course has given me an opportunity to step up and get more ice time.
“I’m really enjoying the step up from SNL and getting the chance to play. The guys on the back end have helped me a lot and their experience is making the jump for me a lot easier. “
Kris also added “The result in Sheffield obviously isn’t what we had hoped for but hopefully a big performance on Saturday in fife will get us going for Sunday and by the time we have a full roster again we will be flying.”
Meanwhile Dundee head coach Omar Pacha said: “It is a big conference game, It will be tough to go into Fife with a depleted line-up but we will still compete and give everything we have.
“We are still looking to improve on offence and now being so short on the backend we need to make sure to make smarter and stronger plays with and without the puck in order to succeed.”
On the Sunday evening they return to the Dundee Ice Arena to face the Challenge Cup Group A leaders, the Belfast Giants, once more after losing 5-2 to Adam Keefe’s men last Friday night.
Saturday’s face-off is at 7:15pm and Sundays’s game is a 6:30pm puck drop.
