By Kris Smith
The Stars continued to play a man down of a full line-up as defence Kris Inglis was still on the sidelines with an upper-body injury and the Steelers were at full strength.
It would be a tough start for the home team as Sheffield took the lead in only the third minute as after a video review, it was determined Cole Shudra’s shot had crossed the line despite the best efforts of netminder, Kevin Carr.
After a deflection out in front the puck had bounced around off a few skates before falling perfectly for Shudra to get a backhanded shot off.
Aaron Fox’s men then doubled their lead in the ninth minute as Patrick Watling had his first two shots blocked before his third slipped its way through the legs of Carr and trickled across the goal line.
Dundee had began to generate a small bit of momentum and created some good opportunities as Ryan Valentini nearly skated his way through the entire Sheffield defence before sending his shot wide of goal and Anthony Rinaldi was unlucky not to score when his one-timer from out wide struck the iron pipes.
Sheffield then gave themselves some breathing room on 16 minutes as they punished Dundee for a defensive error and Brett Neumann’s first goal of the night came from a stray pass, after Craig Moore’s attempted switch was intercepted by Watling.
Watling then played the puck to Mikko Juusola who unselfishly set up Neumann to drill the puck home and that gave the Yorkshire club a big cushion heading into the second period.
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All images: Derek Black.
