A pair of Dundee Stars goals 54 seconds apart halfway through the 3rd erased their 2 goal deficit before a Zachary Tsekos powerplay goal in overtime closed out a 4-3 defeat of the visiting Flames who return to Spectrum with the regulation point.
Sam Talbot’s first of the season nudged Flames into an early lead. A Keanu Yamamoto goal at 8:49 evened the count, but Josh Waller’s answer in the 13th minute gave Flames an edge that that carried through the opening 20 minutes and the next set of 20 that followed.
At 46:08 Brett Welychka had Flames in front by a pair but Brendan Harms at 48:06 and Yamamoto at the 49 minute mark forced the tiebreaking measures.
In overtime, the Flames failed to deliver during a 4 on 3 powerplay, but the return manpower advantage to Stars that followed made the difference thanks to Tsekos 3 minutes into the 4th frame.
Jake Kupsky made 38 saves on 42 shots countering Richard Sabol for Stars who was 30 for 33.
“Unfortunately, that was a game we had a good chance at and nobody is happy we let it get away,” said Paul Dixon.
“We missed an opportunity for sure with the late lead and getting the first overtime powerplay chance that we did not use to close it out, and Dundee with their chance did just what we had hoped to do.”
“The good thing is we have at least a table point to show for it, and we will have to settle for that and look ahead to our next opportunities to do a bit better.”