The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Stars looking to get back on track on Belfast visit
ICE HOCKEY: Dundee need to put disappointing weekend behind them
Dundee Stars travel to Belfast tonight to take on a Giants side battling for the Elite League title.
After a disappointing weekend for Dundee, coach Omar Pacha is asking his side to turn things around and get back on track.
Stars suffered a double dose of disappointment, losing both of their key clashes to play-off rivals Braehead Clan.
They will still be without Emerson Hrynyk, Riley Stadel and Johan Andersson for the league clash.
Craig Holland was called into action on the last trip to Belfast when Travis Fullerton fell ill but Stars’ back-up netminder says the team needs to “reset mentally” and get back to “playing good hockey”.
He said: “It was obviously a disappointing weekend but we have to remain positive, put it behind us and push on.
“There’s still a lot of hockey to be played and making the play-offs is still the goal.
“It’s a tough place to go into with the travel but we just have to go there with a positive mindset and play our own game. It’s an opportunity to come away with a good result and get back to winning ways.
“They’re obviously one of the top teams in the league, with a balanced squad with a lot of skilled guys, but we’ve had a good result against them this year so there’s no reason we can’t go and do that again.
“We’ve been playing good hockey recently and up until last weekend we were on a really good run so I don’t think we really need to adapt.
“I think it’s more needing to reset mentally to get back to winning ways.
“We can’t change what happened at the weekend now and dwelling on it too much is just going to set us back.
“It’s a new week and we still have the belief that we will get that play-off spot.”
Pacha said: “It is back to the drawing board.
“There is a lot of hockey left and we still have 15 games to play. We have to start on Wednesday by sealing a result in Belfast.
“Staying out of the box and making sure we create some good scoring chances will be key. Unfortunately against Braehead we struggled to finish our chances, but we had a lot of them that we just didn’t finish so hopefully we can change that on Wednesday.
“It is getting through that first period, basically trying to keep the game tight. It is about playing our style of hockey and a dirty road game.
“We have been playing well on the road recently – we just haven’t got the bounces – so we need to create more chances, so we get those opportunities to score.”
Reflecting on last weekend, Pacha added: “I think a lot of it comes back to discipline.
“It was two tight games and I think discipline hurt us.”
Adam Keefe’s hosts have recently hit a bump in form and have slipped nine points behind league leaders Cardiff Devils. Belfast had a mixed weekend. After defeating Fife 6-4 on Friday night they then lost 6-3 to Manchester Storm on Sunday.
Stars will face-off against Belfast at 7pm in the SSE Arena, with a webcast available from the Giants website.