By Kris Smith
On Saturday night, the Stars were edged out by Coventry Blaze in a close encounter at the Dundee Ice Arena that finished 2-1.
That is the lowest scoring game between the two sides at the DIA and there have only been three other matches that ended in the same score.
However, it is the Blaze that have won three out of the four of them and Saturday’s win for Danny Stewart’s side gave them their 33rd EIHL win over the Stars
The lone Dundee goal was netted by Kevin Dufour and that was the Canadian’s 12th of season in all competitions.
On Sunday afternoon, the Tayside team made their first visit of the new season to the Fly DSA Arena in Sheffield for their third league match with the Steelers.
Unfortunately for Dundee, despite a change of venue, the outcome would not differ as they Steelers claimed a 4-2 win on home ice.
From the trio of games so far against Sheffield, they have netted 16 times and the Stars have put 10 goals past Tomas Duba.
A few players are also starting to rack-up their point totals in this fixture as Dundee’s Anthony Beauregard has recorded five points in the clashes with the Steelers.
The Canadian centre has two goals and three assists, while Justin Maylan has four points (2+2) then Elgin Pearce and Dufour each have three (0+3).
Meanwhile, Tanner Eberle netted his fourth and fifth goals against Dundee this season in Sunday’s win and Marc-Olivier Vallerand, Brendan Connolly and Robert Dowd have now each beaten Alex Leclerc twice.
Going into week nine, there is only Stars player on a point streak and that is, Jagger Dirk who has collected six assists over the last five games.
There has also been some slight changes to the Stars statistics leader board again.
Dufour leads the way in goals with his previously mentioned 12 and he has the most points with 19.
Maylan has the most assists with 11 and Egils Kalns has the most penalties in minutes with 37 from 15 matches.
Dufour is also top of the powerplay goals category, alongside Pearce and Matt Marquardt with three powerplay markers each.
This weekend’s fixtures see the Stars visit the home of the Belfast Giants on Friday evening before a home tie against Glasgow Clan.
After sweeping the Giants in the Challenge Cup group stage, this first league meeting between the sides will prove to be a big result for either side.
After two 4-3 wins over Adam Keefe’s men, Dundee are aiming to extend that run but the Northern Irish club have a chance to take advantage of the Scottish outfit’s poor form and buck the trend.
Both Beauregard and Dufour were the only Stars players to score in the SSE Arena last time and Beauregard has four points (2+2) against Giants, while Dufour has netted three times.
Yet, Belfast’s Curtis Hamilton is also in-form, as he has found the net once in each game against Dundee so far this year.
On Saturday, Zack Fitzgerald’s Clan return to the DIA after two intense clashes in the opening weekend of the season, where the Stars again swept their opponent in the league cup group section.
With 13 goals scored in two games against Glasgow and only five conceded, it is no surprise that the names Dufour and Beauregard are on the scoresheets in these games too.
Dufour is 2+3 against the Clan and Beauregard is 3+1.
Also, with high points tallies versus the Glaswegian side are Pearce (3+2), Marquardt (1+3), Maylan (0+3) and Shawn Boutin (0+3).
The only Clan player to net twice against the Stars this season has been Mathieu Roy, he scored a single goal in each game and Stars will be out to stop him extending his scoring run in the third game.
Face off time for this Saturday’s home game against Glasgow is at 7pm. Tickets can be purchased HERE!
Thanks to www.starsstats.co.uk/ which was created by Dave Sweetin and Elite Prospects for making some of the information used in this article available online.
