Stars-Ducks thoughts

That was a big two points. It didn’t look good after Brendan Morrison scored his second goal to give Anaheim the 3-2 lead late, but the Stars found a way to tie it late on the goal by Mike Ribeiro and then got the big OT goal from Mike Modano.

Right now they are finding ways to win games and get points. Earlier in the season they were finding ways to lose games like this. Four of their last five games have gone beyond regulation and they’ve won three of those four that gone to OT or the shootout. Those are a big three points if you look at the standings right now. Take away those points and things don’t look so good. Those three OT/shootout wins came against Western Conference foes, so that means those teams are getting points too. That’s one drawback.  Still, they are steadily gaining ground, but this is just getting them into a position for a long, long fight for a playoff spot/positioning.

That was a tough game against the Ducks, who played hard and gave the Stars some problems with their forechecking. It came down to a few little things and the Stars ended up on the right side of the equation. That’s the difference between winning and losing and the Stars are starting to find themselves on the right side of it more often than not.

They are starting to get some big games out of their big players like Ribeiro and Brad Richards. Modano hasn’t been popping in a lot of points lately, but he’s playing well and had the big goal Saturday night. James Neal continues to come up big. He had another goal and some great work and a nice play to set up Ribeiro’s goal that tied the game at the end.

Overall, these wins - save the blowout of Toronto - haven’t been pretty but they are starting to play better. They are in every game and winning a majority of them right now. That’s the bottom line. Some postgame quotes and a link to audio of Neal on The Ticket’s postgame show is below: 

Mike Modano: “We’re in that mode right now where we’re trying to get points and we’re slowly climbing. When you have everybody contributing it helps the team as a whole. Guys are finding out their role and everybody’s helping out.” “Mike (Ribeiro) was making some good plays and getting some variety and eventually you need to get the puck to the net. Those guys were working hard down low.” On Neal: “He’s doing a lot of things well but he’s moving well and skating which for him is critical to his success. There’s going to be ups and downs with any young kid, and you’ve just got to be patient. He’s certainly made same good strides and is playing good hockey.” “We’ve always based things on good defending and good hockey and we’ve always thought that was the basis of our tea, something we’ve prided ourselves on.”

James Neal: “I’m playing with Mo and Lehtinen and they do such good things with the puck, it really helps me out a lot. You’ve seen them over the years. (On the game-tying goal) “I was just trying to put it in front of the net and it found a way through to Ribeiro. We’re trying to make a big push right here. For the younger guys it was a learning experience at the start, we weren’t playing well at the start. It’s our house and it’s where we want to win a lot of games. Every point is huge for us tonight. It was a huge overtime win for us tonight.”

Brad Richards: “Winning is addictive and losing is addictive. Right now we’re winning and it’s becoming addictive. You’ve got to turn it your way and we’ve turned it our way with hard work. It wasn’t pretty at times, but we deserved to win this game.”
(on Modano): “Talent is talent. When you see his size and his speed, he’s still got a lot left in him. He worked hard this summer.”
“Guys coming back from injury is huge. You have expectations of who’s going to be in the lineup and that all goes haywire with six or seven guys out. It makes your lineup much more complete with everyone healthy.”
“When you get a chance on the pp in overtime, you don’t want to miss that. I’m feeling much better. I was inconsistent at the beginning. Before this I’d gone six games without a point. It’s good, throughout the lineup, we need that balance. Loui’s been a good linemate.”

Mike Ribeiro: “The important thing is the two points and climbing the ladder. We have to keep a playoff mentality every night and we just need to keep pushing. We need to focus on the game at hand and keep winning at home. We’ve been showing some good work ethic, so we’ll try and keep this run going. We are gaining some confidence and pushing forward. We have some key players back in the lineup and we are gaining some swagger.”

Dave Tippett: “We are showing a desperation for points but we are giving away too many points. Great to see us come back and send it to overtime, and Modano had a great shot at the end but we were sloppy and messy, lots of turkey involved. We’ll take the points though. Neal had another great tonight and if he keeps this up, we will have a heck of a player on our hands. We were very efficient at the start at the third, but we can’t keep turning pucks over and chasing the game. We were on our heels at times, and those are things we need to clean up.”

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