 |
|
|
|
|
Opening Night Rally: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 Once again the Dallas Stars found themselves in a hole on opening night. Once again they found a way to climb out of it and win. Goalie Marty Turco set up defenseman Darryl Sydor for overtime breakaway goal to cap off a 3-2 comeback win over the Colorado Avalanche Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center in Denver. The Stars, who were outplayed for the first 40 minutes, got early third period goals from Mike Mike Modano and Loui Eriksson to erase a 2-0 deficit and set the stage for overtime. Turco made 36 saves, including 30 over the first two periods of the game to go along with his assist on Sydor's game-winning goal for the Stars, who overcame a 4-0 deficit to win last season's opener over the Los Angeles Kings. The Stars, who set an NHL record by winning 12 games last season when trailing after two periods, were down 2-0 entering the third period Wednesday night. But they struck for two goals just 28 seconds apart to tie the game. The first one came at the 1:28 mark of the third when Eric Lindros sent a pass from behind the goal line to Modano, who scored with a blast from the left faceoff circle. Just 28 seconds later, defenseman Stephane Robidas pinched down behind the net and got the puck to Stu Barnes, who sent a cross-ice pass to Eriksson and the Stars rookie scored from point blank range for his first NHL game. The Stars started overtime on the penalty kill after Sydor was called for slashing at the end of regulation. After the the Stars killed off the Avalanche power play, Turco sent a long pass to Sydor, who had just come out of the penalty box. The Dallas defenseman then beat Colorado goalie with a wrist shot at 2:07 of overtime to give Dallas the 3-2 win. There was some confusion about the play because the penalty clock time on the scoreboard was wrong, but it didn't matter. The penalty was over and Sydor's time was up. "[Goalies] just do not plan on setting up goals," Turco said. "I saw Darryl jump out of the box and it was a great result. "I didn't know the clock was wrong. I'm glad we didn't look at it. We had enough things to worry about with the four-on-three." It caught Stars coach Dave Tippett off guard too. "It's amazing how you can have a clock not working in overtime,'' Tippett was quoted as saying by the AP. "Did you see that? A clock not working on a penalty time in overtime, now that seems a little wow. I'm looking up there and suddenly Syd is coming out of the box and he scores and that was that. We got a break there." The Avalanche dominated the first period, outshooting the Stars 22-7 and scoring two power play goals in a 46 second span to take a 2-0 lead. It could have been worse, but Turco came up with two big stops on Colorado's first power play of the game. He made a nice pad stop on a Milan Hejduk blast from the slot and a sprawling save on point blank rebound chance by Avalanche rookie Paul Stastny. The Avalanche struck for their first power play goal while on a two-man advantage. Hejduk slid a pass across the crease to Joe Sakic, who scored from point blank range at the 11:54 mark. Colorado then struck on the remaining five-on-four power play to make it a 2-0 game. After a Marek Svatos shot was blocked, Avs rookie Wojtek Wolski got the rebound and fired the puck into the net just under the crossbar at the 12:40 mark. The Stars dodged a bullet later in the period, killing off another Colorado five-on-three power play that lasted for 44 seconds. Each team had three power play chances in a scoreless second period. Both goalies came up with big saves. Theodore made a nice stop on a Steve Ott point blank chance and Turco made a several nice saves, including a great stop on Sakic.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indicates Subscriber only
content