Kings rip Stars again

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

For the second time in two weeks, the Los Angeles Kings rolled into the American Airlines Center and rolled over the Dallas Stars. Lubomir Visnovsky scored three goals as Pacific Division leading Los Angeles beat the Stars 6-3 Wednesday night.

The loss extended the Stars home losing streak to four games (0-3-1). It's a streak that started two weeks ago with a 7-2 loss to Los Angeles. It was also the Stars fifth loss in seven games overall (2-4-1).

"However you want to slice it, when you give up six goals in a game you are not going to win very often," Stars coach Dave Tippett said.

The Stars held a 12-7 advantage in shots and a four to zero advantage in power players over the first period, but found themselves down 2-1 at the end of the first period.

The Stars struck first when Jere Lehtinen set up Jussi Jokinen on a breakaway and the Stars rookie beat Kings goalie Jason LaBarbera with a shot to the top left corner of the net 3:51 into the game.

The Kings tied it a little less than three minutes later by taking advantage of a Dallas turnover moments after the Stars failed to cash in on a power play chance.

After Johan Hedberg hesitated while handling the puck near the corner, leading to some confusion between him and Philippe Boucher. Kings forward Alexander Frolov got to it and set up Sean Avery, who beat Hedberg with a shot from the slot at 6:21.

"We thought we played a pretty decent first period and that first goal was deflating. It was deflating. You can sugarcoat it all you want, but it was deflating for the team," said Tippett. "It's a goal you've given up that the other team hasn't earned. Those are tough ones to give up." 

The Stars had a great chance to retake the lead when they went on a five-on-three power play for 1:51, but they weren't able to generate a shot.

The Kings took the lead at 16:33 after Mattias Norstrom picked off a clearing attempt at the blue line and his shot from the point deflected off John Erskine and into the net.

The Kings got their first power play chance of the game at 7:12 of the second period and it turned into a two-man advantage 39 seconds later. 

The Kings took advantage 25 seconds into the two-man advantage when Visnovsky's shot deflected traffic and past Hedberg at 8:16 of the second period.

Just one second after the second penalty on Dallas expired the Kings scored to make it 4-1. Pavol Demitra sent a cross ice pass to Visnovsky, who beat Hedberg from the bottom of the left faceoff circle at 9:52 of the period.

Mike Modano came close to scoring twice later in the period. He was denied by LaBarbera, who made a nice glove save and another shot beat the Kings goalie, but hit the post.

Modano finally got one past LaBarbera and into the net with 32 seconds left in the second when Sergei Zubov's shot from bounced off him and past the Kings goalie to make a 4-2 game heading into the third period.

The Kings extended their lead with another power play goal 5:50 into the third when a wide open Visnovsky beat Hedberg with a shot from the high slot.

Less than a minute-and-a-half later the Kings scored off the rush to make it 6-2. Demitra, who was trailing on the play, took a pass from Craig Conroy and scored his eighth goal of the season.

Stars defenseman Martin Skoula scored on a power play with 4:42 left to round out the scoring on the night. 

 

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