Caps coach has got high hopes despite defeats

Edinburgh Capitals were well beaten, 6-2, by Dundee Stars at Murrayfield last night, giving the Taysider's a clean sweep in the two game pre-season challenge between the clubs.

Capitals defenceman Tyler Plews broke the away penalty box door with a hit on a Stars player

Capitals bench-coach Jock Hay agreed there was some hard work ahead of their first competitive game of the season this weekend, but proclaimed the new look Edinburgh Capitals team “will win more games than they lose” finding plenty of positives despite the scoreline.

Edinburgh, minus starting goalie Travis Fullerton and forward Garrett Milan, started brightly but after benching Canadian defenceman Michael D’Orazio as a precaution when he picked up a knock early in the second period, lost their way as Dundee dominated the second half of the game.

Hay said: “We did enough in the first half of the match to show that we’re going to be a good team. Half the guys haven’t even practised together, and we haven’t had a chance to work on any set plays.

“We lost our way a wee bit after taking penalties and the injury to Raz (D’Orazio). It upset our rhythm but we’ll be fine. You can see there’s a lot of skill on the team.

“Our top line of Pavel (Vorobyov), Yevgeni (Fyodorov) and Karel (Hromas) look good, we have quality throughout the team and we’ve got Milan to come in who’ll give us a bit more speed up front.

“We’ll win more games than we lose this season – I’ll say that right now.”

Edinburgh looked the better of the two teams in the opening period, scoring on an early power-play opportunity through Mason Wilgosh. It looked like Edinburgh would hold a 1-0 lead going into the second period but a sloppy turnover in the final seconds allowed Joey Sides to equalise for the Stars at 19 minutes, 56 seconds.

The second period opened in a flurry of goals. Jacob Johnston restored Edinburgh’s lead after just 30 seconds, firing a laser-like wrist shot into the top corner. However, parity was restored soon after, Brett Switzer scoring for Dundee on the power-play in the 24th minute.

The incident that lead to the Stars equaliser was a four-way bout of fisticuffs behind the Caps goal with Jay King and Latvian trialist Rihards Grigors taking on Dundee’s Scott Brannon and Matt White. Capitals defenceman Tyler Plews broke the away penalty box door with a hit on a Stars player soon after, an incident that delayed the game for some ten minutes as makeshift repairs were made.

The delay caused by the Plews hit seemed to suit the visitors, who re-grouped and dominated from that point on, they scored a quick third through Sides before making it 4-2 in the final minute of the period, Justin Faryna with the goal. Edinburgh rarely troubled Dundee in the third and conceded goals to Brannon and Felix Poulin.

Edinburgh play Dundee at Murrayfield in their season opener on Sunday, in what could well be a physical game.