By Kris Smith
The Stars head into Surrey tonight with four-points separating them from sixth to the Flames who sit in third and both teams were forced to play overtime last night after being locked in 1-1 games after 60 minutes.
The Stars welcomed Coventry Blaze to Tayside and after a scoreless first period, where Dundee had dominated the chances, they finally broke through just 15 seconds into the second period.
Anthony Rinaldi drove the puck towards the Blaze net before swinging a pass back into the crease for Brent Beaudoin to fire past Nolan Kent and from there, the Stars created chance after chance.
However, they failed to make them count as Coventry kept clearing away the numerous rebounds Kent and the defence were giving up.
Danny Stewart’s men soon tied the game with a powerplay goal in the 37th minute, when Kobe Roth redirected Kim Tallberg’s rising shot past Kevin Carr, after the home side went down a man when Sean Allen’s physical play caught the attention of the referees and he was given a minor penalty for interference.
Despite both teams being level, Dundee continued to dominate the chances in the third period but could not find another way past Kent and the game would be forced into overtime and after killing off the last part of penalty from the final two minutes of regulation, the Blaze moved forward and bagged the winner.
Johnny Curran used his agility to keep the puck in Dundee’s end and he then drove towards the goal line, squeezing a pass between the goal post and Carr, where the puck would be turned in by a Dundee stick.
Meanwhile in Nottingham, the Flames fell behind on 14 minutes as Hugo Roy put the home side in front, but just two minutes later, Ryan Hughes had the game level again and there would be no more scoring in regulation.
Then nearly two minutes into extra time, Matt Tugnutt – a former player of Marc LeFebvre’s at Chamonix – bagged the winner for Guildford and gave Eamon McAdam his 15th win of the season with a 30 save performance.
Guildford have yet to beat the Stars but did take one point away from their two games against the Taysiders, as they lost out 5-4 in Dundee and were then beaten 4-3 after penalties in England.’
The Flames had led 2-0 on both occasions but could not stop the Scots from battling back to take all four points and Valentini, who leads the Stars in scoring with 30 points, has scored three times against Guildford this year.
Paul Dixon’s men have won seven of their last eight matches and will face a Stars side without defenseman, Chris McKay after he was handed a three-match suspension for cross-checking.
Speaking after last night’s overtime loss, Stars Head Coach, Marc LeFebvre said: “It is weird, in the short-term it is frustrating but in the long-term it is a big point.
“In the grand scheme of things, I think there will be a lot of three-point games in the second half of the season as teams are battling for positioning and tonight we just could not find our way past the goalie, it was just one of those nights.
“Credit to their goalie, he gave them a chance to win tonight and both goalies did obviously but we outshot them by nearly double and it was just one of those frustrating nights offensively.”
Discussing tonight’s trip to the Spectrum Arena, he continued: “We just need to find a way to put the puck in the back of the net, but it is a totally different team we are playing.
“Guildford play with a lot of speed, pace and are very dynamic offensively, so we have to find a way to nullify that and take advantage of our chances.”
Face-off for tonight’s game in Guildford is at 6pm.
