By Luke McGinnis
Marc LeFebvre’s men will be looking to respond after a difficult weekend that saw them fall 4-2 to the Blaze on Saturday before being shut out 7-0 by the Belfast Giants in Northern Ireland 24 hours later.
“It starts with our starts which I don’t think were very good, so you fall behind games early, then you’re chasing the game, and when you’re not scoring you’re trying to change up the lines to get some offense going,” reflected LeFebvre.
“It seems every mistake we make it is in the back of our net, teams punish us and we don’t punish them which has kind of been the story of our season.
We plateaued at a certain point this year, and everyone else seems to have taken off except for us. I’ve been disappointed in that aspect, but in saying that with the 14 games left we’d like to be above .500, finish strong down the stretch and play some good hockey to get some results.”
Coventry have claimed four wins in the season series so far, with the Stars picking up two.
Captain Drydn Dow leads Dundee in scoring against the Blaze with seven points, while Spencer Naas has five. Bradley Schoonbaert, Jonathan McBean and Otto Nieminen have three apiece.
Matthew Gleason tops the Blaze scoring charts in this matchup with seven points, followed by Adam Robbins, Jere Vertanen, Kim Tallberg, Grant Mismash and William Boysen on six each.
Emil Kruse has been between the pipes for both of Dundee’s wins in the series, while Mat Robson and Dershahn Stewart have two and one victories respectively for Coventry.
“They work hard and are well disciplined, but we’ve beaten them twice before this season,” said LeFebvre on Coventry.
“We’ve had some good games against them, so we need to get a full 60.”
Glasgow and Dundee last met several weeks ago, with the Clan skating away with a 5-2 victory in Dundee.
Otto Nieminen and Griffin Luce scored for the Stars, while Brady Risk, Hugo Roy, Tristin Langan, Brett Neumann and Rylan Schwartz found the net for the visitors.
Since then, Mike Sirant’s side have claimed five of the last eight available points, though they come into the weekend off the back of a 6-5 defeat to the 10th-placed Fife Flyers.
Tristin Langan leads the Clan with 36 points in 41 games and has recorded 13 points in his last nine outings. Daniel Tedesco and Hugo Roy both registered four-point performances against the Flyers.
“Firstly it’s a rival, and secondly they’ve gone through some changes themselves in terms of coaching, bringing some players in and some players leaving. They’ve gone through their own down times this season as well and I’m sure they’re not where they want to be either.
We know what to expect, it’s a tough building to go into and the crowd can be really raucous at times so we’ve got to nullify that,” concluded LeFebvre.
Matt Boudens, who has missed the past month with an upper-body injury, resumed skating with the team this past week and remains week-to-week. Meanwhile, Jarrett Fiske is set to return to the lineup after missing last weekend through illness.
