By Luke McGinnis
Marc LeFebvre’s men opened their league campaign last Saturday with a hard-fought 6-1 loss in Sheffield against the Steelers. Jonathan McBean scored Dundee’s lone goal, while goaltender Emil Kruse produced several key saves to keep the Steelers at bay early on.
“The first thirty minutes I thought was a perfect road period,” said LeFebvre. “Then they got the second one, we took a penalty and they made it 3–1 on that powerplay. After that I think our heads got down a bit — we let them take control of the rest of the game and dominate us for the most part.”
The Stars bounced back the following night, securing a 5-4 overtime win at home against the Belfast Giants to remain top of their Challenge Cup group.
“It was a first place game in the cup and the guys responded well,” LeFebvre added following the win. “We had our blips where we let them back into it, and we’ve got to clean up some things on our special teams, but we found a way to win and get an imperative two points.”
Matt Berry recorded his team-leading tenth point of the Challenge Cup campaign. Kameron Kielly, Morten Jürgens, and Hampus Olsson also found the back of the net, while Jarrett Fiske was strong in net making 32 saves in regulation. Drydn Dow and Otto Nieminen both scored in the shootout, and Fiske stopped all four Belfast shooters to secure the win.
“Maybe not our best performance, but once again getting a victory against Belfast is a huge thing,” said Nieminen. “Marc has talked a lot about our special teams which have been struggling and kept Belfast in the game, so that’s something we need to work on.”
The Manchester Storm are coming off a four point weekend — defeating the Nottingham Panthers in Challenge Cup action on Saturday, before following up with an Elite League win over the Fife Flyers on Sunday.
Kaleb Ergang, Brady Gilmour and Gary Haden each tallied four points, while Drew DeRidder and Evan Weninger split goaltending duties.
The Stars and Storm met six times last season, each claiming three victories. Keanu Yamamoto led Dundee in scoring with nine points, followed closely by Drydn Dow on seven. Jarrett Fiske backstopped all Stars three wins, posting a .938 save percentage and a 2.67 goals-against average. Meanwhile, Stephen Johnson and Loren Ulett both contributed four points for Manchester. Evan Weninger was between the pipes for all three Storm wins, recording a .913 save percentage alongside a 3.33 goals-against average.
Looking ahead to Saturday’s trip, LeFebvre noted, “It’s the most unique building in our league, I’m sure guys who have played there before will tell the new guys how tough it is. Manchester are a good team, they’ve had a pretty good start themselves in both the league and the cup so we know it’s going to be a good challenge for us.”
“I’ll be honest, it’s going to be hard,” Nieminen concluded. “Nobody feels good going in there — it’s a tough place to play. If we have the right attitude and we work hard, then we can take the two points.”
