| With Stars' key two-game California road trip
getting off to an ugly start, it was time for a
closed door meeting. The message afterwards was pretty
clear cut.
"We want people to think we are a
good team and there are a lot of guys in here that
didn't compete and didn't want it," Stars captain
Brenden Morrow said on the team's official site after
the game.
And there was this Stars coach
Dave Tippett after the game: "We need more from
everybody. These are real strong barometer games for us.
There are some individuals who move up and some who move
down. That's the way it is."
Tippett had no interest in talking about the Ducks,
who improved their league-best record to 27-4-6, making
the Stars just their latest victim.
"We're concerned with what we do, not what they do.
We didn't make it a hard enough game for them," said
Tippett.
It wasn't exactly easy for the Ducks and they exactly
dominate the Stars, but they the picked apart the Stars
over the course of the first 40 minutes to build a 4-1
lead. The Stars had a few good pockets of pressure, but
nothing that could thwart the relentless Ducks, who won
just about every key facet of the game.
They won the special teams battle.
They were better defensively.
Their goaltending, while not spectacular, was solid.
They created the better scoring chances and Corey
Perry finished on two of them.
They are the best faceoff team in the league and
scored twice directly off faceoff wins.
With the game 2-1 to start the second period, the
Ducks caught the Stars flat footed off the opening
faceoff and Perry almost scored seven seconds into the
second. He did score six seconds later by getting to a
loose puck off the faceoff. That was a key turning point
in the game.
When Matthew Barnaby tried to give the Stars a little
lift with a fight in the first period, Anaheim's Shawn
Thornton answered the bell by getting the best of
Barnaby.
All of it just added up to an impressive 4-1 win for
the Ducks. They are the best team in the league and the
Stars were nowhere near the level they needed to be to
beat them.
The Stars? It was same the old story in one key
respect. They scored one goal. That's 11 times in the
last 21 games they have scored fewer than two goals in a
game. You just aren't going to win many producing that
kind of offense.
Morrow admitted the lack of goal scoring was a
concern during the first intermission interview on the
Stars broadcast network.
"It's a bit of a concern. We're asking our goalies to
do a lot. They've stole some games for us this year,"
Morrow said. "We could take some of that pressure off
them if you could find the net a little bit more. So
yeah, it's a bit of a concern for us."
Wednesday's loss was the third in the last four games
and the fourth in the last six games for the Stars. They
are 10-11-0 in the last 21 games.
It's not going to get any easier Thursday night when
the Stars take on the Sharks, who have won four of five
and nine of their last 12.
"These two games are big for us
and we're going to have to be better tomorrow against
San Jose," said Morrow. "The only ones that can get us
out of this are the guys who were in the closed-door
meeting tonight and we'll build from there." |
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