Home Ice Big Advantage

Hip hip, hooray! Stars top the Avalanche 3-2 thanks to Alex Auld and the clearly oiled up Mike Modano (two goals last night, six in the last eight contests). There were some hard hits, but otherwise a fairly clean game penalty wise, with only three called the entire game. The game easily could have had more scoring for the Stars; for instance, Benn swung and missed with a clear shot of the back of the net, but I wont be petty and just appreciate the win. Dallas gets another shot at making it three in a row on Sunday, taking on Tippett's Coyotes for the first time at home. I'd like to think the crowd will give him a warm reception, considering he was forced out and didn't leave on bad terms. If we can win this game, you have to like our chances at making it four straight wins, since our next target is Minnesota on Tuesday. (I only stay that because at home, we dominate the Wild) But let's not count our chickens before they hatch, or however that saying goes. I apologize for the short post, but work is calling.

*I forgot to mention last post, but Tom Wandell will miss the remainder of the season due to knee surgery to repair his torn ACL. I remember when the injury occurred, he hit his knee on the door while skating by the bench. He left that game, but it didn't seem too serious; but it is. This is upsetting, since he was really starting to come on and play physically and make an impression. I pray the team doesn't do anything stupid and forget about him next season. All the best Tom.

Hot At Home

*Dallas lost to Colorado 4-0; you can thank the NFC Championship game for no review on that one. I recorded it and intended to watch it, but while viewing it on a commercial in the football game, I witnessed the third Avalanche goal, which led me to say "Yeah...I'm not watching this." Basically, Colorado iced the puck, the ref is yelling "icing", the puck hits said ref, Colorado get that puck, and scores on what I think was a 3 on 2. This play seemed to summarize how the night went for our team.*

Alright now for the good game. Dallas beats Calgary 4-3 in a shoot-out (1-0). The Stars opened the scoring with Modano rifling a shot past Miikka Kiprusoff, but the Flames netted two on an extended power-play resulting after the Fistric-Nystrom fight. Normally fight balance out, but during the fight, Fistric pulled off Nystrom's helmet, held onto the helmet, and hit Nystrom with his own helmet. Fun for the fans, but the NHL doesn't laugh over things like that. I don't think it was meant to be dirty (it was listed as a "Match Penalty for Attempting to Injure) but regardless, it happened. (My guess is it got stuck on his hand or between his fingers.) Clearly our penalty kill isn't holding up, and a third goal was added in the second, but Auld looked pretty good and Neal pushed the momentum back in our direction with a deflection in the last minute of the second period. Brad Richards completed the comeback with a power-play tally in the third, by hammering a shot off a Calgary player and in. Modano and Richards missed their shots, Auld made three saves, and Eriksson won it. Overall a great game, and Dallas continues their home ice dominance. I was hoping to go to the game tomorrow night, but work calls. Everyone else should go though.

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.

Epic

What a game. Despite being played by two middle of the pack teams, this oddly had a playoff feel to it; at least for those in the crowd, despite a good deal of empty seats. (I'd say a little over 3/4 full) Quite a few Minnesota fans, including some brave ones wearing Viking apparel. (I counted one proud purple Favre jerseys and two AD's) There was great energy, large impart to the physical game the Stars and Wild were playing. The only thing that confused me a bit was the changing of the Wild net minder's last name when the puck entered the offensive zone. Initially I figured they were trying to psyche him out, but if that was the case, why isn't it done at every home game, no matter the opponent? Maybe it's just a Minnesota thing. First and foremost I want to reiterate something I said a few times at the game. The Stars outscored the Cowboys. Dallas wins 4-3 in Auld's second game as trial goalie. Former Star Antti Miettinen nets two for the Wild, and Modano scored his 551st goal. (Side note, Modano is 25th on the all-time scoring list. I figured he'd be higher considering he's the highest scoring American born player; really shows how much of a minority we are in this league.) By far the best part of this game was Steve Ott getting into a fight with Josh Harding. I've always wanted to see a goalie fight, and this could be the closest I'll ever see. The Stars begin a 3 game road trip, where they can't seem to pull their act together. Not having Morrow-Ribiero-Lehtinen will hurt, but the rest of the team is becoming pretty scrappy, and so long as Richards stays hot and Auld can keep us in games, you have to like our chances.

-I'm not a big Todd Beruzzi fan, but he's got some moves.
-One of the best goals I've ever seen. ESPN described it as And 1 Hockey Style
-Can't really tell, but there's a girl signing the National Anthem.

Time For Change

Two more games in the book; first a 5-3 loss to the Montreal Canadians then a surprising 3-2 shootout win over the Red Wings. I actually caught most of the Canadians game, which was a frustrating tilt. It started off great, they played with pressure and scored three times on a team with an excellent goalie tandem of Carey Price and Jaroslav Halak. So what was our downfall? Defense and goal tending, but I'm sure you could have guessed that. It's been our problem all season, and Crawford is finally addressing it. Well, the goalie situation at least. The next game against the Red Wings featured Alex Auld in net. He gave up two goals in roughly the first ten minutes but then locked it down after that. The Stars fought back to send it into the shoot-out, and it took six rounds to decide the victor. Steve Ott backhanded it on a sliding Jimmy Howard who slowed the puck, but pushed it out while on the goal-line. Originally ruled no-goal, the video review overturned the call and after making his sixth save, Auld and the Stars walked away with two points. I've taken away two things from this game. 1) Crawford is giving Auld the chance to be the starter now. It should be interesting to see what he does with this opportunity. He's been excellent in some games, and miserable in others. The team can score, so really we just need some decency. Turco has given up too many soft goals which not only hurt on the scoreboard, but can really demoralize a team. If Auld doesn't work out, I like John's idea to call up Climie for a trial. He's putting up good numbers, so why not? Dallas has had proven success in their goal tending system, let's see what we've got. 2) Lehtinen and Morrow both left the game due to upper body injuries. Morrow's isn't sounding too bad, but for some reason I have a bad feeling about Lehtinen. I'd love to be wrong, but loosing Ribiero for over a month is bad enough, we can't afford any other serious injury.

Minnesota comes to town tomorrow; big game on the national platform of VS. I'll be going, so I hope for a good contest. I figure everyone's watching the Cowboys-Vikings game, but boy was that Chicago-Detroit shoot-out good. Chicago won, but Detroit had some fancy fancy goals. I'll look for highlights tomorrow to put up on the next post. Dallas (Stars) should take this game. I'm not used to them being a better home team than road team. Good for the fans I suppose.

It's Been A While

Three days shy of a month long break. What did we miss? 14 games. 5 Wins. Second to last in the Pacific Division. 4-ish points out of a playoff spot. Before looking that one up, I figured it would have been much higher than just 4. The best way to describe this past month: It's just bad hockey. This team is capable of playing better, but the poor play of Matt Niskanen, loosing Mike Ribiero to the throat injury, and just woeful goaltending is holding this team back. For a moment I thought they had turned it around; a big comeback on national television against the second best team in hockey (Chicago) followed by another big game on New Years Eve against Anaheim (including a hat trick by Eriksson...good things happen when I don't go on my birthday). The club, riding high, then dropped 5 of the next 6, getting outscored 23-10. Both netminders are struggling, and the offense is pretty spotty as well. On the positive, the penalty kill hasn't been too horrible, and Brad Richards is racking up points left and right; but the dry spell, coupled with the Mavs and Cowboys winning, (quite possibly even the Rangers simply signing players) have returned the team to roughly an afterthought on the front of the Dallas Morning News sports page.

Regardless, GO STARS