Andrew's Dallas Stars Blog

Goal celebration gone awry

The link to this video of a goal celebration gone awry in Sweden was emailed to me by the people who run the HockeyWebcast channel on YouTube. It’s pretty funny. The celebration mishap is about 17 seconds in.

Reunion comes down

The final parts of Reunion Arena came tumbling down today. Video from NBC 5:

And here’s video somebody shot from a train:

Tuesday practice update

I’m not in Detroit, but I just talked to Stars coach Marc Crawford over the phone and here are a few notes:

Lines are shaping up this way:

Neal-Richards-Eriksson
Morrow-Modano-Benn
Ott-Ribeiro-Lehtinen

That leaves Barch, Wandell and Petersen for the fourth line assuming that Lehtinen does indeed return. Crawford said it seemed pretty positive with Lehtinen considering he had two good practices.

Brian Sutherby is still out with the groin issue and Fabian Brunnstrom is skating, but isn’t taking contact. He’s out as well.

Crawford indicated they don’t plan on calling up anyone because they have the extra defenseman they can use.

I talked to him about the line moves and the recent woes finding offense, and I’ll have quotes in the update on the main site later tonight. 

Brendan Shanahan retires

Brendan Shanahan announced his retirement today. He accomplished a lot during his career. Won three Stanley Cups, Olympic gold. He also played a big role in helping reshape the game coming out of the lockout. NHL.com has the story here.

THN ranks the Calder candidates

The latest issue of The Hockey News ranks the Calder Trophy candidates and Stars rookie Jamie Benn comes in at No. 8. Here’s what the magazine says about Benn;

[Benn] has been seeing second line minutes with the Stars. He’s the kind of offensive talent that has the ability to change the complexion of a game with his scoring knack.

Here are THN’s ranking of the top 10 Calder candidates at this point of the season.

1. D Tyler Myers, Buffalo
2. F Ryan O’Reilly, Colorado
3. D Michael Del Zotto, NY Rangers
4. F John Tavares, NY Islanders
5. F James van Riemsdyk, Philadephia
6. D Davis Drewiske, Los Angeles
7. D Victor Hedman, Tampa Bay
8. F Jamie Benn, Dallas
9. G Semyon Varlamov, Washington
10. D Jason Demers, San Jose

Another goal for Neal

There’s been a scoring change from Saturday’s game in Phoenix. The Stars’ second goal, which was originally credited to Matt Niskanen, has now been changed to Neal, who tipped the puck into the net. Neal’s goal is his 11th of the season. Niskanen and Loui Eriksson get the assists. Thought you would want to know. 

Quotable: playing conditions

In honor of TCU’s big win over Utah last night I’ll run this quote from legendary Horned Frog coach Dutch Meyer, who said many years ago:

“Fight ‘em till hell freezes over then fight ‘em on the ice.”

And then I have this one from Stars head coach Marc Crawford who likened last night’s playing conditions in Phoenix to football:

“ . . . The same for both teams, but that ice was absolutely god-awful,” he said. “And when it’s a visiting coach arguing about it - I know home teams don’t like to do it to their own building - but that was embarrassing, and it doesn’t make for good power plays.

“Hopefully, now that they got their money here in Phoenix, they can do something about the ice here . . . It was like playing in Lambeau Field.”

Stars-Coyotes thoughts

You aren’t going to win a lot of games scoring two goals a night.. They’ve scored two in each of the last six games and they are 2-3-1 during that stretch. And one of those wins came in a shootout.

The 12 goals over the last six games break down this way - seven at even strength and five on the power play.

The power play didn’t help Saturday night against Phoenix. Matt Niskanen scored a power play goal that made it a 3-2 game, but the Stars missed on a couple of PP chances in the first period when they had the Coyotes on their heels a bit and they had a couple of chances late to tie the game. Timing is a big part of when you score those power play goals and not just number scored versus the opportunities.

The timing of the goals they gave up didn’t help either. They gave up one in the first 12 seconds of the second period and then they’ve gave up one with 24.3 seconds left in the second. That second one really hurt because it gave Phoenix a 2-1 lead, the Coyotes got some momentum off it, came out with some early pressure in the third and extended the lead to 3-1.

The Stars had their chances, but couldn’t get over the two goal hump and therefore they couldn’t string together two consecutive wins together… again. They’ve only done that once this season.

Throw in the 6-5 shootout loss to Florida back on October 30 and the Stars 2-3-2 in their last seven games. Of those seven games, six have been decided by one goal (only the 4-2 loss to Nashville wasn’t) and four have been settled in either overtime or the shootout. So they are in games and usually it’s a breakdown in one area or another that is doing them in these games where they come up short. But I think scoring a two goals a game isn’t helping things. The chances are there but the finish hasn’t.

On a positive note, I thought Mike Modano had another strong game. That’s two straight solid outings for Modano, who had one goal and one assist for a second straight game.

Sutherby out tonight

Brian Sutherby is out for tonight’s game after tweaking a groin in Friday’s practice in Phoenix, according to a Stars official. Jere Lehtinen (groin) and Fabian Brunnstrom (shoulder) are also out, so the Stars are down to eleven forwards. That means Mark Fistric makes the move to forward tonight and Jeff Woywitka will be in the lineup.

Tippett talks Stars

Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett (I almost typed Stars head coach Dave Tippett) did an interview with the Coyotes official site about tomorrow’s night game with the Stars, which you can listen to here.

Tippett also talks a little Stars in this video preview from the Coyotes official site:

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