High-flying Stars not to be taken lightly by Steelers

In a stuttering start to the season, Steelers have won only half of the 10 matches they have played so far. Seven of those games have been in the Challenge Cup with Doug Christiansen’s side having virtually qualified for the knockout phase from Group B.

In the league, the Steelers sit seventh in the overall standings with one win from three games and have plenty of catching up to do.

Wednesday night’s arrival of surprise early-season leaders Dundee Stars heralds the start of a 16-game run of league action for the South Yorkshire club before they play their final Challenge Cup group game at Hull Stingrays on November 30.

Dundee arrive at Ice Sheffield four points clear at the top of the overall league standings having won seven of their opening nine games - including home wins over the Steelers, Nottingham Panthers, Coventry Blaze and Cardiff Devils.

Jeff Hutchins’s team have only suffered one defeat in six matches and won a double header against Hull Stingrays at the weekend to claim a crucial four points for their Gardiner Conference title hopes.

As a result Goertzen, now in his second season with Steelers, said the Stars should not be taken lightly by the hosts.

“You’ve got to give Dundee credit where credit is due - they’ve got off to a good start and made some good signings over the summer and they are playing well right now,” said Goertzen.

“They are riding a hot goalie and scoring some timely goals so they are definitely not a team to take lightly - we’ve got to make up some ground on them.”

Given such a mixed start to the campaign - explained somewhat by injuries to key players - Goertzen hopes his team have used their Cup matches to iron out any kinks in their game in order to leave them ready to take on the more serious business of chasing down a regular season league title.

“It was important to go into the Dundee game on the back of a win (3-2 at home to Coventry),” added Goertzen.

“We’re trying to gain some momentum here, establish our identity as a team and I think we had a great game last time out. We’re just looking to build off that and get better every day.”

Christiansen is hoping to welcome back forward Rob Dowd to the line-up after he was forced to sit out Saturday’s win over Coventry with a groin strain, although defenceman Danny Meyers and back-up goalie Geoff Woolhouse remain out injured with D-man Dustin Kohn rated as 50-50.

“Rob skates on Tuesday and we’ll see on the morning of the game how he’s progrssing,” said Christiansen. “I think there’s a decent chance that he will play.”

Although he admits to not having expected Dundee to be top of the pile at this stage of the season, Christiansen said the statistics made it clear why Hutchins has been able to steer his team to such an excellent start.

“Back on August 1 or whenever, I don’t think anybody would have expected that Dundee would be in first place come early October,” added Christiansen.

“But they’ve got excellent goaltending, he leads the way both in save percentage and goals against. They’ve also got the league’s leading points scorer so when you look at that combination, together with how well their special teams are also doing, it’s not such a surprise.

“What I want to see from us consistent improvement, them starting to understand our systems and what we are trying to do here and I believe I am starting to see that.

“We need to pick our game up and apply the lessons we have learnt in the first month.”