Storm pick up another road win in Scotland

Photo: Derek Black

Manchester Storm picked up two points on the road in Scotland for the second successive week with a 5-4 win in Dundee, but had to survive a late Stars fightback to secure the points.

Dundee opened the scoring early but found themselves behind by the end of period one. Domenico Alberga picked out the pass for Jonathan McBean in the slot to put the Stars ahead just 68 seconds into things. Exactly four minutes later, Storm levelled with an Alex Robert shot that went in and bounced straight back out of the back bar. With 1:45 left in the period, having killed off a penalty some 15 seconds before, Grant Herbert broke though on the breakaway and beat Richard Sabol to put Storm ahead before the break.

Things didn’t get any better for the Stars in period two as Manchester extended their lead. 2:24 into the middle period, Craig Martin scored his first Storm goal with a laser to the top shelf just as the Stars returned to full strength. Stephen Johnson banked one in off the back of Sabol at 29:54 to make it 4-1, and although Zach Tsekos pulled the score back to 2-4/at 33:29, Jake Durflinger followed up Alexis D'Aoust's effort to make it 5-2 with 2:35 left in the period.

Alex Tonge beat Weninger from a bad angle with just under 12 minutes to play to get the Stars on the board, and while they had one washed out for a kick after video review, Jake Elmer did get the Stars back to within one with 8:08 to play. The Stars had over 90 seconds playing with six skaters as they tried to tie the game, including a Drydn Dow shot with only seconds left on the clock, but they ran out of time as Manchester held on for the win.