| If Thursday night's contest against
the Detroit Red Wings was a measuring stick game, the
Stars came up short.
"Detroit is setting the bar in the
West and we better raise our bar or we’re going to be in
trouble," said Stars coach Dave Tippett. "This is
another strong lesson for us about what it takes to be
successful."
The Red Wings didn't exactly throw out
a masterpiece, but when the going got tough they hit
another gear and buried the Stars with a strong push
starting late in the second that carried right through
to the end of the game.
With the Red Wings ratcheting up the
desperation and the pressure after falling behind by
goals, the Stars were unable to provide a response to
match it. And when the Stars needed someone to make a
play, a save, win a faceoff, it didn't happen.
After Brenden Morrow scored a power
play goal with 6:18 left in the second period to put the
Stars up 3-1, the Red Wings started to push back. Over
the final 26:18 of the game they would outshoot the
Stars 19-6 and outscore them 3-0.
"A two-goal lead isn't safe anytime,"
Morrow said. "I think we sort of sat back and tried to
play with the lead. We were on our heels to start the
third. Anytime we get some hesitation in our game, it's
tough to win, especially against Detroit. They
capitalize on your mistakes."
The Stars were unable to clear the
zone late in the second, Pavel Datsyuk got the puck, put
a shot on net and then scored off his own rebound to
make it a one goal game.
The Red Wings came out on fire in the
third period, scoring twice in the first 1:01. Datsyuk
swooped in as Joel Lundqvist tried to break up a
Valtteri Filppula pass, poked the puck away and beat
Marty Turco five-hole with a blast from the right
circle.
Just 25 seconds later the Red Wings
win a faceoff, get the puck on net and a puck
accidentally goes in the net off Stars defenseman
Stephane Robidas as the Stars are in full scramble mode
around the Dallas goal.
"The first goal was a bad goal and the
second, we didn't check very well," Tippett said. "Once
you give up two quick goals to start a period, it's hard
to get momentum back."
And the Stars never were able to get
the momentum back. Niklas Hagman got a great chance with
less than a minute to go in the game, but Wings goalie
Chris Osgood took it away with a nifty glove save.
But the bottom line was the Stars
surrendered three goals in a span of 4:44 and saw a
two-goal lead turn into a one-goal deficit they could
never overcome.
“We simply can’t give a team like that
life and opportunities," Turco said. “The energy was
there early, but then our mentality wasn’t where it
should have been. We need to allow less chances, I need
to make more stops and we need to put the pedal down
with leads."
It was another tough game in Detroit
for Turco, who is 0-7-2 against the Red Wings on the
road and 2-10-5 overall in his career.
In the battle of the team's top
players it was advantage Detroit by a wide margin. While Datsyuk, who had two goals and
an assist, was lighting it up offensively for the Red
Wings, their other top center - Henrik Zetterberg - was
turning in a solid game in the matchup with the Stars'
top line of Brenden Morrow, Mike Modano and Brad
Richards.
Zetterberg, Johan Franzen and Mikael
Samuelsson kept the Stars' top trio quiet at even
strength and eventually Tippett juggled his lines in the
third period, moving Morrow back with Mike Ribeiro and
moving Niklas Hagman onto the line with Modano and
Richards.
On a positive note for the Stars, they
got a strong game from Joel Lundqvist, who took the
suspended Steve Ott's place centering a line with Loui
Eriksson and Jere Lehtinen. Lundqvist made nice plays to
get the primary assists on the Stars' first two goals by
Trevor Daley and Lehtinen.
But that was early in the game and the
Stars' failures late in the game were the story on this
night. Not much is going to settled on a Thursday in
March, but this was a good test for the Stars and they
didn't fare well. |
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