The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Stars’ home run brought to a halt by Braehead
Ice hockey: Dundee outfit lose out after winning at Milton Keynes
Dundee Stars’ run of five straight home wins was brought to an end last night when they lost 7-3 to Braehead Clan.
Dundee had come back from 3-1 down to claim a vital 4-3 win in Milton Keynes on Saturday but the long journey clearly had an effect.
The home side were without the injured Adam Harding, Chris Lawrence and Johan Andersson, with Anthony Mastrodicasa also missing from the line-up.
Cale Tanaka played in his first game against Dundee since joining Clan in the summer.
The visitors were without Lee Esders, Josh Grieveson and Tyler Shattock.
Ben Edmonds passed up a chance for his first goal of this season after he missed a loose puck that was sliding past the gaping back door of the Clan goal.
John Tripp’s men then opened the scoring with a power-play goal after Jacob Doty smashed a loose rebound into the top of the net at 19:27.
In the second period Braehead became the dominant side.
Doty went clean through Stars’ defence and slid the puck straight through the five-hole of the Dundee keeper at 28:01.
The Glasgow team extended their lead to 3-0 after a quick pass was sent by Doty to Robert Lepine, who released a quick shot that beat Travis Fullerton at 33:25.
It was not looking good for the home side until some hard work by Gabriel Lévesque and Marc-olivier Mimar was rewarded when they found Omar Pacha in plenty of space and he shot the puck low past Ryan Nie to get Stars off the mark at 37:35.
A slapshot along the ice by Pacha was deflected past Nie by Mimar at 40:24, for a power-play goal.
Dundee could not take advantage of a seventh power-play opportunity before Brendan Brooks collected a loose puck and went one-on-one with Fullerton.
The Clan’s leading points scorer repeated the same goal he has scored three times against Dundee this season, firing a quick slapshot from the hashmarks straight into the top corner. It was timed at 46:33.
A quick play by the road team resulted in Brooks netting his second. Tyler Scofield passed the puck across to Brooks, who was all alone and shot it high past the diving Fullerton at 46:47.
Mimar scored his second power-play goal of the night to make it 5-3.
Pacha called a timeout and pulled his goalie for the extra skater on the powerplay. Cody Carlson fired a shot and the rebound dropped on to the stick of Mimar and he tucked it home at 54:19.
Clan restored their three-goal cushion through Lepine less than a minute later as Fullerton could not hold a shot and the puck trickled through his legs and across the line at 54:57. Braehead did not stop there. Craig Cescon scored against his former team to make it 7-3 after he received a pass in the slot and fired the puck into the top left corner at 55:31.
Clan’s Landon Oslanski was sent for an early shower after abusing the on-ice officials in the final moments.
Dundee failed to score from the resulting power-play and that concluded the game and their winning streak.
Marc-olivier Mimar and Braehead’s Ryan Nie were man of the match award winners.
The Stars had come from behind to defeat Milton Keynes Lightning 4-3 on Saturday.
Malcolm Gould grabbed Stars’ first after MK took the lead.
After the hosts added two more goals, Gould, Danish newcomer Lukas Lundvald Nielsen and Elite League player of the week Gabriel Levesque scored to seal an important win for Pacha’s side.
Stars now prepare for a clash with their biggest rivals, Fife Flyers.
The Fife outfit’s eight-game winning streak came to an end last night when they lost 5-2 in Coventry .
The defeat came after Flyers brushed aside Edinburgh Capitals 6-1 in Kirkcaldy.
Meanwhile, bottom club Capitals, last night ended their 15-game losing streak with a 4-3 win over former Elite League pace-setters Manchester Storm at Murrayfield.