Storm pull away from playoff chasers

Photo: Mark Ferris

Manchester Storm got the two home points they needed to keep some breathing space between them and the sides chasing the playoffs with a 3-2 victory over Dundee Stars in front of 1,784 fans at the Storm Shelter.

Dundee took an early lead through Carter Folk who had two bites at the cherry in front of Jeremy Brodeur to slot home at 2:58 - the goal coming after Barriga, earlier on the same play, had found no Stars teammate in front to pass to when Brodeur mishandled the puck behind the net. For the next 15 minutes, it was almost all Storm with Chase Harrison, forcing Anton Svensson into a good save, Joe Hazldine narrowly missing the target, and Kevin Ekman-Larsson hitting the post. The home side's pressure eventually told when Antony DeLuca rocketed a one-timer past Svensson on the powerplay at 19:15.

What had been a fast opening period continued into the second, and again it was Dundee who got off to the quicker start - Ben Sokay's neat hand-eye pulled the puck out of the air past Brodeur with 91 seconds played of period two. A mistake from Ryan Verrier on his own blue line allowed DeLuca to skate through 1-on-0 and beat Svensson to level it at 24:52, while a patient Tyson Fawcett finish put the hosts ahead at 26:29 after the visitors failed to clear their zone.

The teams traded giveaways to lead to breakaways but each time their goalies came out on top, while shortly before the end of the period Hugo Reinhart was ejected for a boarding major.

That major penalty calmed the game down in the final period, where the Stars were grateful to Svensson for keeping them just one behind. The visitors pulled their goalie with over three minutes to go in search of the tying goal, but Manchester rode out the closing stages - and missed a couple of golden chances on the empty net - to take the win.