Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
ROUND-UP Stars hit back to record fine win at the DIA
DUNDEE CCS Stars took two points from their two games this weekend.
They put a 3-2 reversal in Murrayfield on Saturday behind them as they produced one of their best performances of the season to thrash Edinburgh Capitals 6-0 in Dundee last night.
In Dundee, Stars’ forward Vinnie Scarsella made his 100th appearance in the Elite League.
With four minutes gone, Stars’ Justin Faryna and Craig Cescon, along with Capitals’ Jaroslav Hrtel, Sean Beattie and Travis Fullerton were all given penalties after tempers flared.
Cescon dropped the gloves on Beattie after seven minutes and both were sent to the penalty box with Cescon receiving nine minutes and Beattie two, leaving the visitors on a seven-minute powerplay.
However, despite Capitals’ pressure, the home side held out to kill the penalties and kept the scoreline blank.
Dundee put heavy pressure on the Edinburgh goal in the closing stages of the period with Lidhammer shooting just over with three minutes remaining, then a Felix Poulin shot came back off the pipes with Fullerton beaten and the session ended 0-0.
It was a bad-tempered affair with Stars picking up 35 minutes in penalties against Capitals’ eight minutes.
The breakthrough came just 26 seconds into the middle session. It was the home side who took the lead with a goal from Mikael Lidhammar with an assist from Kevin Hart.
Stars doubled their lead on 31 minutes when a shot from Brett Switzer flew high into the net.
Seconds later, Edinburgh’s Garrett Milan was given two minutes for tripping and, on the resultant powerplay, a pass from Cale Tanaka set up Matt White who scored.
With six minutes remaining in the second, Milan was in the penalty box again for too many men and again Capitals were made to pay when the same combination of Tanaka and White doing the damage, White grabbing his second of the game for a 4-0 lead.
Almost i mmediately, Dundee were on another powerplay when Karel Hromas was penalised for hooking and Justin Faryna pounced to make it 5-0 with three minutes left in the period.
Six minutes into the final period, Faryna was on the scoresheet for the second time in the game when he finished off a pass from Lidhammar to make 6-0.
Although the home side had chances to increase their lead, they coasted to a 6-0 victory to collect two valuable league and Conference points.
It was an excellent performance from the Taysiders.
Coach Marc LeFebvre said: “It all came together for us as I knew it would.
“We have our guys back fit and I was always confident we would get back on track. We are a good team and we proved it.
“On Saturday, we deserved to take something from the game. We didn’t take our powerplay chances but last night we did.”
In Murrayfield on Saturday, Stars welcomed back Justin Faryna and Scott Brannon after both had missed the last few games through injury.
Capitals took the lead with just over a minute on the clock through Ian Schultz.
With one second left in the session, the home side doubled their lead with a powerplay goal from Matt Tipoff.
Capitals raced to a 3-0 lead with another powerplay goal, this time from Mason Wiglosh.
White pulled a goal back for Stars then Kevin Bruijsten netted for the Dundee team.
Stars thought they had snatched the equaliser when Bruijsten fired the puck into the net only for it to be washed out as the referee had claimed to have blown for time.