Capitals 4, Dundee 9: Hay hails young Brits in defeat

Ainars Podzins sends the puck past the sprawling Dundee netminder Travis Fullerton. Pic: Ian Coyle

Edinburgh were outplayed from the off, Dundee out-shooting Edinburgh 20 to five in the opening period, and they took a third-minute lead when Brian Hart skated hard down the Capitals right and fired an accurate wrist shot across McLaughlin that went in off his left-hand post.

McLaughlin made a string of early stops as Dundee could have put the game to bed before the home side mustered up a chance of their own, Ainars Podzins forcing an acrobatic stop from former Capitals goalkeeper Travis Fullerton in the tenth minute.

Against the run of play Edinburgh equalised, Igor Valeyev leading a rare break up the ice and his pass was finished from the slot by Sergei Banashkov at 16 minutes and 36 seconds.

The free flowing first period was stopped in the final seconds following what looked like a nasty leg injury to Stars defenceman Joey De Concilys after he collided with Fullerton in the Dundee net whilst successfully thwarting another Podzins chance.

The first period ended at 1-1, which was as good as it got for the home side, and Hay explained: “The first period we were lucky to come in 1-1, Jordan kept us in the game. We told the boys we can’t continue to play like that, but lo and behold we go out and play the same way and lose three goals in something like the first four shifts. Real amateur stuff and it’s just not on.

“Dundee are a team that, if we play well, we should be able to challenge. Obviously we didn’t do that. We gave up too many chances and made too many turnovers. The guys were doing what they wanted out there instead of sticking to the gameplan and that just doesn’t help anybody.”

Stars indeed did profit from some poor play from the home side and within a minute of the restart restored their lead through player-coach Omar Pacha, who blasted a hard slap-shot from the top of the circle. Two goals 90 seconds apart had the visitors 4-1 up little more than five minutes into the second period, Anthony Mastrodicasa and man-of-the-match Lukas Lundvald Nielson doing the damage.

Caps were creating chances at the other end and pulled a goal back on the half-hour. Mike Cazzola skated round the back of the Stars net and passed to Podzins out-front, the Latvian rounding Fullerton and firing into the empty net. In their best spell of the game, Robertson nearly profited from another nice Cazzola feed, but couldn’t beat Fullerton from close range. However, any momentum was lost when Edinburgh player-coach Michael D’Orazio over-played a 50/50 puck on the Stars blue-line, eventually losing out to Lundvald Nielson who made no mistake when clean through on McLaughlin.

When Jimmy Jensen scored Dundee’s sixth goal early in the third period just seconds after a rare Capitals power-play expired, Edinburgh looked a beaten team, and after Jensen scored again in the 47th minute, Dundee replaced Fullerton with Scottish netminder and another former Cap, Craig Holland.

18-year-old Robertson, with a nice low back-hand finish, grabbed his first professional goal before Dundee, through Jordan Cownie and Marc-Olivier Mimar, made it 9-3 with six minutes remaining.

But in a rare highlight for the home fans, there was still time for Robertson to grab his second goal of the game, finishing smartly from the slot after being set up by Cazzola.

Hay continued: “I thought Jordan played really well tonight, he had some great saves which kept the score down, especially in the first period.

“Young Caly getting a couple of goals – we put him out there with Cazzola and Dylan Anderson, he went to the net with his stick on the ice and it shows what you can do if you do the right things. In fact all our British guys did ok tonight, it’s the imports who weren’t as good as they should have been and that was the telling factor.”