Stars get first win in Cardiff in four years

Photo: James Assinder

Dundee Stars logged their first win in Cardiff since 2021 with a 4-2 win over the Devils at a sold-out Vindico Arena on Friday night.

A competitive opening period ended scoreless. Such was the open nature of the period, with large spells without whistles, it took just 26 minutes to complete. Cardiff’s best chance to open the scoring fell to Josh MacDonald who just couldn’t lift the puck over Richard Sabol, while on the very next shift Philippe Sanche hit a post with the best opportunity for the Stars.

33 seconds into period two the Devils took the lead. MacDonald did well to win the puck on the blue line, skated into the zone, and backhanded the puck over Sabol to open the scoring. Two and a half minutes later, the Stars were level, however. A Ben O’Connor shot was stopped by Carruth but the rebound only got as far as Zach Tsekos before it was put home at 23:02.

Dundee were growing in confidence and took the lead at 29:24 – while the Devils killed off Reid Duke’s hooking minor, eight seconds after it expired they could only look on as Cole MacDonald found space and fired home a Keanu Yamamoto feed to put the visitors ahead. MacDonald drew another good save out of Sabol before the period was out, with the Stars leading 2-1.

Just over six minutes into the final period, Kameron Kielly batted the puck home off a rebound to put the Stars two ahead. A similar play from Reid Duke got the Devils back to within one with 3:45 to play, but with 94 seconds of empty net time the Devils failed to trouble Sabol as they pushed for an equaliser. Dundee added an empty-netter on the buzzer that was eventually deemed to have entered the net before time expired, and the Stars took a 4-2 win.