By Kris Smith
The Stars caused a huge upset on Friday night in South Wales as they defeat Elite League leaders, Cardiff Devils 4-2 to move within two points of Glasgow Clan, who sit seventh in the standings.
The opening 20 minutes would remain deadlocked at 0-0 thanks to some good goaltending from Richard Sabol and Cardiff’s Mac Carruth but just 33 seconds into the middle period, the home team took the lead as Josh MacDonald capitalised on a defensive zone turnover by the Stars.
However, Dundee responded just minutes later a Ben O’Connor picked out Zach Tsekos at the back post and he turned home the equaliser on 23 minutes but the Taysiders then kicked on and took the lead at the 30-minute mark, after Cole MacDonald scored off the rebound from Keanu Yamamoto’s saved effort.
Both teams wasted a pair of powerplay opportunities before heading to the third period and the Stars then increased their advantage to two-goals as Kameron Kielly caught his own rebound, throw it down to his stick and fired past Carruth inside 47 minutes.
The Devils would pull one back with a late powerplay goal as Reid Duke batted a loose puck out of mid-air to set up a tense finish with less than four minutes to play but Pete Russell’s side would be unable to breakdown the determined Dundee defence.
The Stars then scored into an empty net on the buzzer and Brendan Harms was awarded the fourth goal of the night to seal an impressive victory.
Meanwhile, Manchester were also victorious last night as they beat the Clan 4-1 to keep on Dundee’s tail and stay only three points outside the playoff spots.
A brace from Ryan Hughes and lone strikes from Craig Martin and Cameron Critchlow powered the Storm to the win as after a scoreless first period, the home team took a 2-0 lead before being pegged back to 2-1 and then netted twice more in the third period.
So far this season, Dundee and Manchester have met twice with the Storm leaving as 5-4 victors on their last visit to Tayside, before claiming a 6-3 win in the Storm Shelter in the latest clash.
There have been seven different scorers of the Stars seven goals against Manchester but they have yet to win a point against the English outfit.
Speaking after last night’s win in Cardiff, Stars Head Coach, Marc LeFebvre said: “It was just a gutsy road effort by all our guys tonight, everybody put a shift in.
“From goaltending to timely scoring and some greatly timely defensive plays, I thought we made it frustrating for Cardiff from start to finish.
“They had some great opportunities but that is when you need your goaltender to make some saves but I am happy with the guys and that is a big two points on the road tonight.
“I thought we managed the blue line quite well, especially in the last five minutes when they got that goal to make it 3-2, we just made it frustrating for them for most of the night and I am really proud of our guys.
“We are starting to see the team we wanted from the start of the year, obviously with some in additions in (Philippe) Sanche, (Spencer) Naas and (Alex) Robert that have really helped that and we changed some things around but getting some healthy bodies in always helps too.
“We are seeing what we wanted to see from day one and hopefully we carry this on through the second half of the season.”
Face-off for tonight’s home game is at 7pm.
All images: Derek Black.
