Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
ROUND-UP No points, no goals as CCS Stars crumble
AFTER last weekend’s two games where Dundee CCS Stars recorded two wins, they came back to earth with a bump this weekend, losing both matches.
On Saturday, they went down 6-0 in Belfast to titlechasing Giants and, last night in Dundee, crashed to a 4-0 defeat to Coventry Blaze.
In Belfast, the home side took the lead after 10 minutes when Blair Riley and Chris Higgins combined to set up Michael Forney, who scored.
Giants then doubled their advantage with two minutes remaining in the period with a goal from Steve Saviano.
The second stanza was only one minute old when James Desmarais added a third goal for Belfast and Higgins added a fourth in 34 minutes.
The game was effectively over for Stars with just over one minute left in the session when Jonathan Boxill struck to give Giants a 5-0 lead going into the final period.
The third session was petering out to a win for the home side when, with 15 seconds remaining, Desmarais grabbed his second and Giants’ sixth goal of the game, to seal a convincing 6-0 win and secure the two points.
In Dundee last night, Stars began the game without Scott Brannan and Justin Faryna through injury and were soon a goal behind when TJ Syner opened the scoring for Coventry after seven minutes.
Stars failed to convert a powerplay chance on 11 minutes and, just two minutes later, Blaze doubled their advantage when Liam Stewart netted his side’s second of the game.
Seconds later, Stewart was in the penalty bin after a holding call but again Dundee failed to take advantage of the extra man.
When Blaze’s Marc Cantin was sent to the box with just over two minutes remaining in the period, Stars had another chance on the powerplay but again failed to capitalise. The visitors went into the first break 2-0 ahead.
Six minutes into the second stanza, Blaze found themselves on the powerplay after Cale Tanaka was awarded two minutes for slashing but the Stars defence held firm and saw out the penalty.
With two minutes left in the middle session, Tanaka again found himself in the penalty box on a holding call and was joined by Blaze’s Ben Davies, who was given two minutes for holding.
On the four-on-four play, Coventry made it 3-0 with a goal from Barry Almeida and they took that lead into the final period.
Two minutes into the final session, Stars once again failed to take advantage of a powerplay after Cantin was given two minutes for holding.
Stars were struggling to get into the game, being outshot by their opponents by two shots to one over the first two periods. In 39 minutes, they found themselves four goals behind with a strike from Robin Bergman.
The home side failed with another powerplay with two minutes remaining in the game as Coventry took the points with a 4-0 victory, leaving Stars trailing them in ninth position in the league as we approach the business end of the season.
Stars coach Marc LeFebvre said: “That was a pretty poor weekend.
“Last weekend we wanted it but this time round we just didn’t compete.
“You can look for excuses by saying we had a lot of travelling, we had injuries but the truth of the matter is we just didn’t compete. We are not going to win games playing like this.
“We will get back to work, get the players picked up and get ready for the next game. We are on the outside looking in at the moment.”