Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Stars looking to make it hat-trick of victories
DUNDEE Stars face Cardiff Devils in south Wales tonight aiming to build on a pair of weekend wins as they step up their hunt to secure a play-off spot.
Stars are looking to tighten their grip on sixth place in the Elite Ice Hockey League table with a third win in three games.
It is currently a tie between all three Scottish teams on 49 points, but Dundee hold the advantage with their 15 regulation wins compared to Fife Flyers’ 13 and Glasgow Clan’s 10.
A win tonight would give the Stars some extra breathing room and possibly a guaranteed advantage over their Scottish rivals if Fife Flyers fail to beat Sheffield Steelers tonight in regulation time, as they take on the newly crowned league champions in Kirkcaldy.
Dundee were 5-1 winners over Clan in Glasgow on Friday, with Carter Johnson, Spencer Naas (2), Drydn Dow and Brent Beaudoin all on the scoresheet, before they beat Manchester Storm 4-1 on Saturday on home ice, where Ryan Valentini, Johnson, Anthony Rinaldi and Elijah Vilio found the net.
Meanwhile, the Devils split their weekend with a 4-0 loss in Sheffield before bouncing back to defeat Belfast Giants 4-3 in overtime, securing their spot as the No 2 seeds for the play-offs.
The Taysiders are yet to beat the Devils this season.
They have come close on multiple occasions with late comeback
attempts making Cardiff sweat, but they could never complete the feat.
The last meeting between the two teams saw Pete Russell’s side take a 6-3 win in Dundee as Cole Sanford, Joey Martin, Tyler Busch (2), Trevor Cox and Ben Davies powered the Welsh outfit to victory, with Stars’ goals coming from a Jake Elmer brace and Johnson.
Johnson is tied with the Elite League’s leading goalscorer Naas (32) for Dundee’s most points against Cardiff this season.
They have both scored three times and assisted twice for five points, while Cardiff’s Marcus Crawford leads the league in assists with 47 and has seven of them against the Stars.
Looking ahead to tonight’s road game, Stars head coach Marc
LeFebvre said: “We will approach it like any other game.
“We know the importance of it, but they are one of those teams we could end up facing in the first round, so not only do we want to beat those guys, we want to send a message at the same time.
“First and foremost we just want to take care of business and secure our spot in the play-offs.”
He continued: “We just need to keep taking it shift by shift, playing hard on each shift and we need to stay disciplined the whole time both within our structure and the way we play.
“We know it is going to be a tough match-up and they are getting ready for the play-offs, too, so it is not going to be easy.
“It’s a tough building to go into, but we will be prepared.”
Face-off in Wales is at 7.30pm.