TRADE-MART DUNDEE STARS 0 UQTR 1 (SO)

Dundee Stars were beaten on penalty shots by the University of Quebec Trois-Riviere Patriotes on Sunday night after 65 minutes of hard, battling and intense hockey as both teams pushed for a final victory to conclude their preseason.

By Kris Smith

The Stars and the Patriotes would battle intensely hard right from the start but the game would remain scoreless after the opening 20 minutes, even as the visitors gained a powerplay in the dying minutes of the first period and it carried over into the second.

Dundee killed off the remainder of the penalty and in the middle session, the tensions between the two teams started to flare as each side was pushing hard for the first goal and the physical play began to take its toll.

It all came to a head just before the second break as Brendan Harms was penalised for roughing during a coming together as he stood up for his teammates and moments later, Stars captain Drydn Dow would be ejected from the game for his retaliation on Edouard Cournoyer after the Patriotes defenseman made a late hit on Dow.

Marc LeFebvre’s men stayed strong on their pro-longed penalty kill in the third as they shut down their opponents for the full five minutes of Dow’s major penalty but there was a close call as one play went to a video review but the puck did not cross the goal line.

However, the Stars penalty killing unit would not be given a rest as Xavier Pouliot was then boxed for two minutes on a slashing call and he would sit for a further two minutes as he voiced his disagreement with the call and picked up an abuse of an official penalty.

The home side survived another long stint with a man down and both teams would also lose more players as a high hit on Dundee’s Alex Tonge sparked a scrum.

Dundee were the closest to breaking the deadlock in the third period as they tested Charles-Antoine Lavallee with a number of efforts but the Patriotes keeper had an answer to every shot that came his way.

After no winner could be found in a very nervous five minutes of overtime, a shootout was required and both Lavallee and Jarrett Fiske in the Stars goal kept out all three of the first efforts, before Vincent Milot-Ouellet converted the Patriotes fourth effort.

That then put all the pressure on Dundee’s Keanu Yamamoto to convert the Stars fifth shot and he tucked the puck past Lavallee and William Dumolin then had the game on his stick and fired past Fiske to claim the victory for the Patriotes.

The Stars end their preseason with two wins and two defeats under their belt but now the real action starts as they begin their Challenge Cup campaign with two home matches against Belfast Giants on Saturday and Glasgow Clan on Sunday.

Dundee Scratches: #10 Kielly (Travelling), #36 Sabol (Travelling), #45 Kelly (Injury), #77 Saunders (Two-Way), #83 O’Connor (International Duty) & #98 Elmer.

UQTR Scratches: #17 Jeremy Martin, #22 Christophe Rondeau & #61 Conor Frenette.

Man of the Match

Dundee: #33 Jarrett Fiske

UQTR: #31 Charles-Antoine Lavalllee

Goals

1st:

2nd:

3rd:

OT:

SO:

0-1 William Dumolin (Unassisted) 65:00 PS

Shootout

Round 1

Dundee: #17 Tsekos – Saved

UQTR: #12 Roy – Saved

Round 2

Dundee: #8 Alberga – Saved

UQTR: #19 Gravel – Saved

Round 3

Dundee: #88 Tonge – Saved

UQTR: #71 Lafrance – Saved

Round 4

Dundee: #27 Gravelle – Saved

UQTR: #86 Milot-Ouellet – Goal

Round 5

Dundee: #20 Yamamoto – Goal

UQTR: #90 Dumolin – Goal

All images: Derek Black.