By Kris Smith
The Stars welcome back Sheffield for their second visit to the DIA this season, after the Steelers were 7-1 winners, three weeks ago.
Aaron Fox’s men struggled to find separation from the hosts through the first two periods as the game was scoreless after 20 minutes, before Sheffield held a 2-1 lead heading into the third.
Then a five-goal third period saw the Steelers run away with the points as Dundee ran out of energy during their third game in four nights, but Sunday will see the reverse of the same situation.
Sheffield lost 4-3 in overtime to Guildford Flames at home, on Thursday night and went to overtime again last night against Manchester Storm, where they won 5-4.
Martin Latal, Robert Dowd (2), Daniel Ciampini and Sebastien Piche provided the Steelers goals last night, while Philippe Sanche hit the net for Dundee in their 7-1 defeat to Belfast Giants.
Once again, Dundee played a strong opening period and the game was still scoreless after 20 minutes, however Belfast accelerated into 4-1 lead by the end of the second, before killing off the tie with three more goals in the final session.
Although, the Stars were boosted by the return of Dundonian duo, Craig Garrigan and Kris Inglis as the pair came back from injury and joined new signing, Ian Parker for his debut.
However, the Tayside team still had to play with only five defenders, as Erik Näslund was not in the line-up.
Reflecting on a disappointing 40 minutes for his side, before turning his attention to tonight’s opponents, Stars Head Coach, Jeff Masons said: “It is just unacceptable.
“A lack of compete, a lack of battle and there is no excuse for it, it is an unacceptable performance and the fans deserve better, the ownership deserves better.
“It starts with myself and I take responsibility for our lack of compete and our lack of fire, and certainly do everything I can to address it, but that was simply not good enough in any way shape or form.”
Mason then discussed how he and his players approach tonight’s match against Sheffield, adding: “Systematically we know what they are doing and structurally we know what they are doing, and we had success against them when we stuck to the gameplan in the first period when they came here a few weeks ago, but it is all down to battle and compete.”
Face-off tonight is at 5pm.
