Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Stars secure key player Garrigan
CRAIG Garrigan was hailed as a “key player” for the Dundee Stars after the forward extended his contract with the club.
Last season, Garrigan featured in 44 Elite League games and six Challenge Cup contests, providing two goals and four assists before an upper-body injury cut his campaign short.
The 26-year-old now has 281 Elite League appearances to his name and also featured 13 times for Nottingham Panthers before collecting a winner’s medal in the 2020/2021 Elite Series.
Garrigan has played a pivotal role at his boyhood club since arriving back in 2018 and has now put pen to paper for another year, for what will be his sixth season as a Star.
Once Garrigan’s extension was confirmed, Stars director of hockey operations and head coach Marc Lefebvre said: “He is part of the fabric of this club and this was another easy decision to bring him back.
“Craig is a big part of our penalty kill, he grafts every day whether it is in practice or games by blocking shots and skating hard. He wears his heart on his sleeve and gives us his all every time he is out there.
“He is probably not the guy who will bring us the most points but he brings the intensity and energy every night. He excels at the bottom-six role and he relishes the opportunity. He is definitely a key player for us this season.”
Lefebvre continued: “Craig brings a lot of energy to our room, to our group and every time he is on the ice he is always buzzing around, so it is important to have a guy like that on the ice.
“He fits in perfectly with our team and what we are looking for, so I look forward to working with him again.”
After signing his new deal to stay with the Stars, the winger, who has been capped for Scotland and Great Britain at youth level, said: “I am very excited to be back for another season.
“This is now my sixth season, so I think it is quite easy to tell how much I love playing in Dundee and, being from Dundee, I love playing in front of a packed DIA.”
Looking back on last season and the success the team found, Garrigan said: “The success came from a mixture of things but it was no secret that our top line was very good and we had great goaltending.
“Although, for us to take the next step, it would be finding consistency as last season I felt we were quite a streaky team.
“We would win a bunch of games then lose a few, so to take this team to the next level we need to be more consistent and hopefully we can finish a bit higher and be in the play-offs again next year.”
He continued: “After the season we had, there has been a lot of guys re-signing for next season but in the past few years we have had some coaching changes and therefore big roster changes.
“So, Marc told me his plans were to keep a core group of guys and build from that.
“When you look at past years and where we have had a lot of changes, you see it is hard to have an impact in the league right away and the bigger teams always have a lot of their team return, so if we have a core of the team return we can build off that and hit the ground running.”