Ups and Downs

First things first. Thursday night's game against Vancouver. Stars lose 4-3 in a game they would have won had just about any other goalie been in the crease aside from Roberto Luongo. The first goal scored by Dallas was a perfect example of Crawford's system; Skrastins came up from the point, joined the attack, and the result was Eriksson evening the game up at one. Peterson picked up a short-handed goal on a simple shot that Luongo would love to have back. Things were going our way, till the Canucks netted their own shorty, and from there they never looked back. I could feel a possible comeback, but loosing Wandell to injury late in the third handcuffed our lines and forced Crawford to play some guys longer than they should have. Daley proved his work ethic by scoring with 3 seconds left in the game. We may have lost, but if we play every road game like this one, our road woes will be over. Dallas again failed to eclipse the illusive three-game winning streak...

Now for Friday's game vs the Edmonton Oilers. While watching the previous night's game, it was stated that the next game would be on FSN Plus, meaning I wouldn't get to see it. Forgetting about this, I set my DVR to record it at 9, although I thought it started at 8. I was going to watch an episode of Lost, then turn it on, when halfway through the episode, I get a text saying Daley scored. Confused, I switched to FSN, only to see Mavericks talk. Angrily remembering the FSN Plus deal, I went back to Lost expecting to miss a possibly good game. One episode turned into two (I'm trying to finish re-watching season 5 before 6 starts Feb 2, and even though I have over a week to do so, I'm down to the final episode already) and I decided, well if the DVR says it came on at 9, why not check it? So I did. And I heard Ralph saying something about a two minute warning left for the Stars to fend off Edmonton. Then my heart sank, as a rebound deflected off Turco's pads, off Modano's skate, and into the net. I kid you not, I angrily stormed out of my room, changed the channel to the game in the living room (no protest either as the old man was asleep) and I said "The Stars can not catch a break." This woke him up, and I expected to watch an overtime period and possible shoot-out with my pop's. But James Neal decided to ruin father-son bonding time by getting in the way of a clearing attempt with 22.2 seconds left and rifling a shot into the back of the net, giving Dallas their first regulation road win since midway through November. As I mentioned before on the game tying goal at the end, the puck hit Turco's pads, not Auld, as in Marty played this game. I still think Crawford is sticking with Auld for the time being, this was just a routine day off since goaltenders seldom play back to back games on consecutive nights unless your last name is Luongo or Brodeur.

Saturday is an off day, then off to face the surprising Colorado Avalanche. Two days off after that, then it's back home for the Flames and Colorado yet again. Guess this is our Northwest portion of our schedule.