Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
ROUND-UP Play-off hopes alive after fine Stars fightback
DUNDEE CCS Stars lost 4-2 away to Manchester Storm on Saturday. However, back in Dundee Ice Arena they came back from 4-1 down to beat Braehead Clan 6-5 after a penalty shootout to keep their play-off hopes alive.
In Dundee, Braehead opened the scoring after six minutes with a goal from in front of the net from Matt Haywood.
The visitors doubled their lead in 15 minutes when a shot from Matt Beca found its way past Fallon for 2-0.
Clan’s Harry Quast was sent to the box on a two minute penalty for hooking with three minutes left in the period and Stars pulled a goal back on the powerplay through Kevin Hart. However, just six seconds later Matt Keith restored Braehead’s two-goal advantage to give them a 3-1 lead going into the middle session.
Two minutes after the intermission, Dundee’s Felix Poulin was awarded t wo minutes for slashing and, on the powerplay that followed, Clan i ncreased their lead through Scott Aarssen to make it 4-1.
Stars got themselves back into the contest after 26 minutes when Matt White cut the lead to two.
Stars then hit Clan with two goals in a minute to tie the game at 4-4.
Firstly, Kevin Bruijsten hit the third after 36 minutes and, 60 seconds later, an assist from Brett Switzer found Mikael Lidhammar who netted the leveller.
In 50 minutes, Clan’s Kyle Horton was awarded two minutes for holding and Dundee’s special teams made it count when Bruijsten added his second of the game to put the home side ahead for the first time.
Back came Braehead and Haywood grabbed his second goal of the game in 55 minutes to bring the scores level at 5-5.
With no further scoring in regulation time, each team earned a point and the game went to sudden-death overtime to determine the destination of the extra point.
Just under two minutes into the extra period, Stars found themselves on a powerplay when Lee Baldwin sat out two minutes for too many men but they couldn’t make use of the extra man as the game went to penalty shots.
With only one miss from the penalty shots, from Clan’s Craig Peacock, it was Stars who picked up the extra point when Lidhammar netted the winning shot to give them two points from a 6-5 victory.
Coach Marc LeFebvre said: “That was a great, gutsy performance from the guys.
“Even when we went 4-1 down, we then had a penalty to kill, which we did, and then got the goals back to tie the game before going into the final period.
“We changed things about and that made all the difference.
“The third line got us going tonight and, to get the two points after the start we had, says a lot about the character of these players.
“In Manchester it wasn’t a 4-2 game.
“We outshot them but their goalie had an outstanding game. That’s how it goes sometimes.”
Against Storm. it was Stars who took the lead in eight minutes with a powerplay goal from Joey Sides.
Former Stars player, Paul Swindlehurst levelled the gamem. Then, on a powerplay, Mario Trabucco put the home side ahead.
Adam Harding then added a third goal in 29 minutes.
In 41 minutes, Stars pulled the game back to 3-2 with a strike from Sides.
However, it was Storm who sealed the points after 55 minutes with a fourth goal from Darian Dziurzynski.