By Kris Smith
The Stars are heading into their mid-week match off the back of a pair of victories at the weekend as they made a statement with 7-0 home win against Fife Flyers in the Tayside Derby on Friday night and followed it up by defeating Nottingham Panthers 5-2 on the road, last Saturday.
Dundee picked up two vital Challenge Cup points in the 7-0 thrashing, which also saw five different goal scorers as Alex Tonge, Brett Gravelle (2), Cole MacDonald, Ben O’Connor and Domenic Alberga (2) all found a way past Shane Owen in the Fife net.
Then on Saturday, Marc LeFebvre’s men moved onto four points in the league table with their second away in their last three road games and after taking the lead through Tonge again, the Panthers would score twice in eight seconds to hold a 2-1 advantage after the first period.
However, the Taysiders hit four more past Ryan Bednard in the second session before shutting the game down in the third to wrap up their two points and O’Connor, Kameron Kielly, Drydn Dow and Keanu Yamamoto.
Meanwhile, the Steelers have had a busy schedule in the past few weeks as they have competed domestically and on the European stage, with last week’s 3-2 penalty shootout win over Czech club, Dynamo Pardubice qualifying them for the knockout stages of the Champions Hockey League.
Aaron Fox’s side followed that historic victory up with two more on the weekend as they defeated Glasgow Clan 6-3 on home ice on Saturday night before claiming a 3-1 win over Guildford Flames in Surrey, on Sunday.
The Stars and the Steelers have already met once this year and two weeks ago in Dundee, the two teams could not be separated after 50 minutes of play with each side exchanging goals in the first period as Jake Elmer and Brendan Harms found the back of the net for the Stars, after Brandon Whistle and Marc-Olivier Vallerand had put the visitors ahead twice.
With 10 minutes left in the game, Dundee were punished for a mistake and Mitchell Balmas converted on a breakaway, as did Mikko Juusola before the Finn then scored into and empty net but it would be defenseman, Colton Saucerman who rounded off the scoring at 6-2 with a last-minute strike.
The Stars also strengthened their offensive ranks this week by brining Canadian forward, Philippe Sanche back to the club for what will be his third season on Tayside and his first game back in blue, red and white could be delayed until the weekend if his international clearance does not arrive before today’s contest.
Looking ahead to tonight’s trip to Sheffield, Stars Head Coach, Marc LeFebvre: “For us it is a good challenge, they are the defending champions for every trophy and it is a tough barn to play in.
“It sets the standard of where we want to get to as a team and as a club, they are the champions for a reason but we have played already and this time we just need to stick with them for the full 60 minutes.
“Last time, it was more of a 50 minute effort than a 60 and we saw what happened in the end there but we have improved.
“Winning three of our last four games has been a big stepping stone and we are starting to play how we have to play if we want to have success this season and we are looking forward to the challenge tonight.”
Face-off for tonight’s away game is at 7:30pm.
All images: Panthers Images.
