Steelers sweep the Stars

Welcome to the report from Wednesday night's game at Dundee.

After seeing off Coventry 3-1 on Sunday, Steelers undertook a lengthy midweek road trip to Tayside to face Omar Pacha and his short benched Dundee Stars team. Steelers were without Zack Fitzgerald who suffered a serious facial injury in the Coventry win, and Andre Deveaux who had been released by the Club 24 hours later. Brady Ramsay came back into the starting line up. Fitzgerald's absence also covered the first of the six games that the Steelers were having to play an import short following a decision by the new EIHL DoPS on Deveaux. Stars were, as stated earlier short benched, and were missing Adam Harding, Justin Fox, Jordan Cownie, Chris Lawrence, Jimmy Jensen and Anthony Mastrodicasa.

The first period was a close affair as the teams shared 27 shots on goal between them, but only one counted. That came at 12:05 when Travis Fullerton in the home goal dropped the puck right at the skates of Robert Dowd who must have thought Christmas had come early, and fired in his 12th goal of the season in all competitions. Assists on the goal going where else but to his line mates Levi Nelson and Andreas Valdix.

Period two was a less frenetic but Steelers took the game away from their hosts; scoring on four of their seven shots on Fullerton to finish 40 minutes game play 5-0 ahead. Two goals in the space of 23 seconds early in the period did the initial damage with Mark Matheson and Nelson both lighting the lamp behind the Stars goal. Then two more in the final stages of the same period ensured the nap hand, Tim Wallace scoring a rare goal these days after goal line technology had given it the green light and then as Steelers defended a Mathieu Roy delay of game minor; Colton Fretter popped up to score shorthanded with 13 seconds left on the penalty and 52 seconds left in the period itself.

Stars replaced Fullerton for the final period, giving back up Craig Holland some ice time, yet Steelers were not letting up. Nelson scored number six for the visitors at 43:35, and continuing a good run of form in front of goal for the Canadian winger. Yet there was to be no shutout for Ervins Mustukovs in Tayside as Malcolm Gould and Joey De Concilys scored within two minutes of each other to give Pacha's side some respectability. However Steelers had the final say, and extended their streak to 0/23 over the Stars player-coach/GM when John Armstrong scored his 15th of the season with 82 seconds left before the final buzzer.

Time for the statistics:

Goals: Stars 2 Steelers 7

Steelers Scoring:  Nelson 2+1, Matheson 1+2, Fretter 1+1, Armstrong 1+1, Valdix 0+2, D.Phillips 0+2, Wallace 1+0, Dowd 1+0, Aarssen 0+1, J.Phillips 0+1, Ramsay 0+1, Marquardt 0+1.

Stars Scoring: De Concilys 1+1, Gould 1+1, Andersson 0+1.

Shots On Goal:  Stars 29 Steelers 37

Powerplay: Steelers 0 from 3 (0% conversion), Stars 0 from 5 (0% conversion)

Penalty Minutes called: Stars 6 Steelers 10

Steelers Goaltender Stats: Mustukovs 27 Saves (513), GAA: 2.00 (2.41), Save Percentage 93.10% (91.60%)

Man of the Match: Levi Nelson (Steelers), Craig Holland (Stars)

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