By Kris Smith
The Stars were supposed to play away to Nottingham Panthers on Friday night but the Panthers had to rescheduled that game for mid-March and that leaves Dundee with no travel this weekend.
Meanwhile, Cardiff host Fife Flyers tonight at Ice Arena Wales and will make the long-drive north to Tayside tomorrow, where they have yet to win this season, but have prevailed twice on home ice over the Stars.
The first clash between the sides ended in a 5-3 win in Dundee for the Stars, after an Elijiah Barriga hat-trick secured the two-points, but in South Wales the Devils had to tussle for the lead and would survive a late comeback from the Scots to claim a 6-4 victory.
Then the Stars second visit saw them chasing the Devils down for the whole game but they bravely fought for the full 60 minutes again and came up just short in a 5-3 loss.
Despite battling injury for most of the season, Stars forward Ben Sokay leads his side in scoring against Brodie DuPont’s side as he has hit the net five times in those three games, whilst Ryan Penny and Joshua Waller have both scored three times each for the Devils.
Dundee currently have no injury concerns heading into the weekend and are expected to ice the same line-up as last weekend when they went down 5-4 to Manchester Storm and 4-1 to Fife Flyers, while the Devils were beaten 3-2 by Glasgow Clan midweek and played without Sam Jardine, Mark Louis and Jake Coughler.
Speaking before his side’s only game of the weekend, Stars Head Coach, Jeff Mason said: “We have had a good week of practice and getting back to work, where we can focus on some of the things we need to improve on and also putting an emphasis on the things that make us a good hockey team, then trying to do those consistently.
“Cardiff are a team that we have played well against in all three times we have played them, starting with the big win here at home and the two games down there, I thought we played extremely well for the most part in both matches.
“One of the things that plagued us when we were down there was slow starts, so it is important that we get off to a good start, because they are not a team who you want to be chasing the game against and we found that out both times we were in Wales.
“We were able to mount the comeback both times but we ended up falling a bit short, so it is important that we get off to a good start and make sure we are managing the puck well, limiting them in transition and not giving them any unnecessary opportunities because they are a team with speed and skill and they will make you pay.
“We feel pretty good playing them because we have felt like we have played them pretty well this season, so trying to build off those things and trying to continue doing the things that brought us success against them in the three previous games.”
Face-off is at 5pm.
