Dundee Stars took to the 3rd period in a 1-1 tie at Spectrum, but scored seconds in and then another a few minutes later to take a lead they would not fully give up the rest of the way during a 4-2 defeat of the hosts.
Inside the back 5 minutes of the 1st, Stars recorded the first goal of the contest off the stick of Philippe Sanche. Shortly after that, Spectrum’s men were forced to kill a penalty over the period’s final 2+ minutes just to keep the game close, but instead did one better and turned the tables with an equalizing Dan Catenacci shorthanded marker 45 seconds from period time.
The clubs skated through the entire middle frame without a goal, but it took just 27 seconds after re-start in the 3rd to get another when the visitors nudged themselves back into the lead with a Brendan Harms strike. About 3 minutes later they extended their advantage through Zachary Tsekos. Ethan Strang cut the arrears to a single when he found the net at 46:54, but another Harms goal about 7 minutes from close ensured Flames could not mount a full recovery.
Eamon McAdam made 43 saves on 47 shots against Jarrett Fiske for Stars who went 35 for 37.
“It is not what we envisioned for the weekend, which I doubt will surprise many people,” said Paul Dixon.
“We were just not good enough tonight. We have played a lot of good games lately and we were not expecting this. Dundee did a great job against us, and forced us to be 2nd place in a lot of areas on the ice and they earned themselves a win at our expense.”
“These are important games for league seeding and heading into playoffs on a good note so it is important that we re-group here this week and be ready to put in much better efforts over the coming games as we try to make something happen in a playoff run.”