By Kris Smith
Last Week
The Stars slipped to a pair of defeats but tested the resolve of both teams with their quick counter attacking offence before coming up just short in the end.
Dundee Stars 2 Belfast Giants 4
On Friday night, Belfast won their third match against Dundee leaving the overall head to head record for the season at three wins for each team.
The overall goals scored in this six game series now sits at 17 for the Stars and 23 for the Giants.
Defenseman, Drydn Dow also scored his second goal in a second straight game against the Northern Irish club.
Dundee won’t meet the Giants again until 30th of this month as they round out 2019 in Belfast.
Coventry Blaze 6 Dundee Stars 3
Last Sunday, the Stars made their first and only visit of season 2019/20 to the Skydome Arena.
So far this season, Dundee and Coventry have met four times but the Blaze have found most of the success by winning three of the four matches.
Also, on Sunday, forward Kevin Dufour netted his fourth goal and sixth point against Danny Stewart’s side this season and the Canadian has a point in each of the four games with the Blaze.
It will be the middle of January before Omar Pacha takes his side back to the Skydome.
Roster Changes
In light of the two defeats, two additions were made to the Stars roster over the weekend.
American forward, Alex Schoenborn was added to the line-up on Friday night and he is the first American to join the Stars squad this season.
However, if Pacha had not signed an American this season, it would have been the first Stars team in EIHL history to not feature a US-born player.
Alex has never played with any former Stars during his past career but he had encountered many ex-Elite League players:
Alexander Guptill (former Nottingham Panther)
Marcus Basara (formerly of Manchester Storm and Fife Flyers)
Tanner Eberle (currently with Sheffield Steelers)
Jaynen Rissling (former Nottingham Panther),
Harrison Ruopp (former Manchester Storm),
Rick Pinkston (former Fife Flyer),
Joel Rumpel (former Glasgow Clan)
Ian Schultz (former Edinburgh Capital)
Linden Springer (currently with Glasgow Clan)
Dillon Eichstadt (Currently with Coventry Blaze)
The Stars also signed right winger, Matt Carter on Monday evening and he is only the second player on team from Ontario, as captain Matt Marquardt hails from North Bay, 217 miles north of Carter’s hometown of Mississauga.
The 32-year-old joins from Cracovia Krakow, the same team that Pacha recruited defender, Petr Chaloupka from.
Last season Carter was the third top scorer for Angers and played alongside his childhood friend and ex-Star, Chris Lawrence.
His connections to Dundee don’t stop there and in fact he has played with more than a handful of memorable Stars players, including:
Matt Bissonnette (Epinal, France)
Gabriel Lévesque (Gap, France)
Jordan Southorn (Fort Wayne Komets and Elmira Jackals, ECHL)
Dylan Quaile (Elmira Jackals, ECHL and University of Prince Edward Island, USports)
Marc Chevrie (Elmira Jackals ECHL)
Joe Fallon (Las Vegas Wranglers, ECHL)
Cody Carlson (San Francisco Bulls, ECHL)
Travis Fullerton (San Francisco Bulls, ECHL)
Chris Lawrence (San Francisco Bulls, ECHL)
Igor Gongalsky (Owen Sound Attack, OHL)
Carter has some great points tallies in his career but one standout statistic is the number of different leagues where he has over a point a game.
In the USports university league, he played 111 games and recorded 140 points for an average of 1.30 points per game.
Then from his four seasons in the French League, he had exactly a point per game as he notched up 122 in the same number of matches.
Also, in France, he played in 10 French cup ties, collecting 17 for a PPG of 1.70 and in the French playoffs he had a 1.33 PPG with eight points in six games.
Carter also played 105 games in the OPJHL and scored 110 points for a PPG of 1.05.
The Canadian also has eight points in eight games in both the Continental Cup and Alps Hockey League
Point streaks
Three players head into Week 17 on point-streaks and they are led by Dow with six points in in the last three league games, while Dufour has three in the last three and Anthony Beauregard has two in the previous two.
This week
In Week 17, the Stars play their first of three double-headers over the festive period as they play home and away against Nottingham Panthers.
Nottingham Panthers
On Saturday, Dundee are down south to play the Panthers on the road for a second time this season before returning home on Sunday to welcome Tim Wallace’s team to Tayside again.
In the two previous games, Nottingham clinched a 5-1 victory in Dundee with Egils Kalns scoring the Stars goal before Pacha’s men were beaten in a tight until the finish match at the Motorpoint Arena.
The teams were tied twice before the Panthers pulled away in the final period, this time Beauregard and Maylan beat Kevin Carr in goal.
The Panthers have already netted twice against Dundee in the two games and they are Brett Perlini, Sam Herr and Jake Hansen.
Face off time for Saturday’s away game in Nottingham is at 7pm and Sunday’s home game against the Panthers will start at 5pm. Buy your tickets for Sunday’s home game HERE.
Thanks to www.starsstats.co.uk/ which was created by Dave Sweetin (@dave_sweetin) and Elite Prospects for making some of the information used in this article available online.
