Devils @ Stars - Match Preview

21st Jan 2014 | Posted by Simon Rafferty

The weekends Triple header kicks off on Friday night as the Devils face second in the league Dundee Stars. With this the first of four matches on the road for the Devils in the upcoming week.

For an in-depth look at the Stars line up we’d suggest that you check out the fairly excellent Chasing the Dragons blog season preview series here http://chasingthedragons.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/ten-teams-a-little-more-than-ten-days-8-dundee-stars/

There have been one or two changes to the Stars roster since this was written with on  trial D man Andreas Persson before our last meeting with them and the recent signing of Canadian defenseman Dylan Quaile for the remainder of the 2013/14 Elite Ice Hockey League season.

Quaile, who is from Toronto, started his 2nd full year of professional hockey in 2013 with the Elmira Jackals (ECHL), before moving to the Central Hockey League with the Brampton Beast, where he featured in 24 games.

The 25 year old joined the Jackals for their final 9 regular season games, and all 6 playoff games, in season 2012/13 after completing 4 years at the University of Prince Edward Island where he recorded 55 points, 7 goals and 48 assists, in 110 games in the Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) league.

Quaile made his professional debut for the Trenton Devils (ECHL) in 2008/09 where he collected 4 goals and 7 assists in 65 games.

Dundee Stars head coach had this to say about the 6' 2" defenseman

"Dylan comes highly recommended by a couple of sources that are close to me and that I trust. "

"I think Dylan will come into the club and only add to our success so far."

"I think he will compliment the fine job our four defensemen have done up to this point."

The Star’s were in action twice last weekend starting on Saturday away to the Stingrays, The teams exchanged powerplay goals early in the game with the visitors hitting the front at 3.35 as Nikita Kashirsky netted. The home side were level at 6.37 with a 5 on 3 powerplay as Guillaume Doucet found the net.
Dundee regained the lead late in the second period as Nico Sacchetti found the net at 37.11 and this was how it remained until the 52nd minute.

Stingrays player/coach Sylvain Cloutier got his team back on level terms with a goal at 51.55 and two minutes later Omar Pacha put them in front as he netted at 53.31.

With Dundee having pulled the goaltender Pavel Gomeniuk completed the scoring as he found the empty net at 59.06.

Final Score  Hull Stingrays 4 - 2 Dundee Stars

Sunday night saw the Stars in action against the Steelers who eased through to a semi-final clash with Nottingham, after edging a high scoring encounter in Tayside but already having a four-goal lead in the bank were never in any danger overall.

Steelers effectively put to bed the Stars challenge when they added two goals in the opening ten minutes with strikes from Maxime Lacroix at 4.52 and Robert Dowd at 9.57 extending the aggregate lead to 6-0. Before the break Nikita Kashirsky managed to get Stars on the board at 10.59 but it was an almost lost cause even this early.

Drew Fata made it 3-1 on the night for Steelers at 25.13 and although John Dolan pulled one back for Stars at 29.06 a late strike by Tim Spencer at 38.49 had the visitors 4-2 in front after forty minutes.

Rob Sirianni made it 5-2 with a 5 on 3 powerplay goal at 46.23 but Stars hit back shorthanded at 4.59 with Rory Rawlyk on target. Nico Sacchetti then gave Stars fans more to cheer when he scored twice to draw his side level on the night with goals at 50.12 on a 5 on 3 powerplay and then at 52.55.

The final word however, went the way of Doug Christiansen’s visitors with a game winner coming from Nate DiCasmirro at 55.48 on the powerplay to confirm his sides place in the Challenge Cup last four.

Final Score Dundee Stars 5 - 6 Sheffield Steelers (Sheffield win 10-5 on aggregate)

The ones to watch for the Stars look to be

Nico Sacchetti on 30 Goals and 34 Assists
Jerry Pollastrone on 19 Goals and 33 Assists
Nikita Kashirsky on 20 Goals and 19 Assists 
Rory Rawlyk on 8 Goals and 29 Assists

In nets the Stars are backed up by Dan Bakala who boats an impressive 2.72 GAA and a 92.7% save percentage.

We will be doing our best to run the “ridiculously childish and disgustingly biased” and “Pantomime Script” like Match Night Live service for these three games, expect name calling, slurs and one eyed bias in epic proportions, at the usual location of http://www.the-inferno.co.uk/mnl and will update on the forum once we know each game is going live.

If you’d like to chip in with a comment, help out with sending updates from a game or make a score prediction you can contact us at matchnightlive@gmail.com