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An impressive start: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 It didn't take the Dallas Stars long to get rolling on their California road trip. They scored 19 seconds into the game on their way to a 4-1 over the Los Angeles Kings Thursday night at the Staples Center. The win gave the Stars their first 3-0-0 start since the 1999-00 season. Antti Miettinen, Mike Modano, Brenden Morrow and Jussi Jokinen all scored goals for the Stars, who got three assists from Eric Lindros and 32 saves from Marty Turco. "Marty played fantastic," said Lindros. "Marty's on right now. He's playing phenomenal hockey for us right now. It exudes confidence throughout our entire team." Stars coach Dave Tippett agreed with the assessment. "Marty's been excellent," Dave Tippett told the AP. "He's made a couple of tough saves when he's had to, and the team has played pretty well in front of him. I like the way our team's competing, and that's from Marty on out." The Stars newly formed top line of Morrow, Modano and Lindros teamed up for two of the Stars four goals and Lindros assisted on a Stars power play goal. It didn't take the Stars long to get going in this one. Just 19 seconds in Antti Miettinen scored to put the Stars up 1-0. Niklas Hagman took a pass from Stu Barnes and sent a pass from behind the goal line to Miettinen, who beat Dan Cloutier from just outside the crease. The Stars extended the lead to 2-0 at the 14:22 mark when the line of Morrow, Modano and Lindros combined for a goal. After taking a pass from Morrow, Lindros put a shot on net from the slot and a spinning Modano put the rebound past Cloutier for his second goal of the season. The Stars extended their lead to 3-0 at the 1:55 mark of the second period. Modano stole the puck from Kings rookie Anze Kopitar behind the Los Angeles net and sent a pass to Morrow, who, with his back to Cloutier, backhanded a shot into the net from a sharp angle. Turco and the Stars penalty kill came up big in the second, thwarting a total of four Los Angeles power plays. On one of the Kings' power play chances Turco was particularly sharp. Despite being shaken after taking a puck to the head off a shot by Kings forward Patrick O'Sullivan, Turco was still able to make a slick save on a blast by Brian Willsie. The Kings finally broke through on Turco thanks to a bad bounce. A dump into corner bounced to the front of the net - catching Turco out of position - and Raitis Ivanans roofed a shot into the top corner of the net at 2:51 of the third to cut the Stars lead to 3-1. But that it was it for the Kings. The Stars rounded out the scoring with their first power play goal of the season later in the third. Lindros sent a cross-crease pass to Jokinen, who put the puck into the open side of the net for his first goal of the season at 13:09 of the third. The loss dropped the Kings record to 2-2-0 on the season. "Tonight we just got sand kicked in our face," Kings coach Marc Crawford said. "We did not have the type of passion that we needed to play with. The team was not ready to play at the start of the game, and that is my fault."
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