Stars-Avalanche thoughts

This loss was huge. I am not going to say they’re finished but if you want to be realistic about things, the math does not look good right now. Not good at all. It doesn’t look good because they are 1-5-1 since the break and Detroit is 5-2-0, Calgary is 4-1-0 going into its game tonight in Vancouver and Nashville is 5-3-0 after beating the Kings this afternoon.

And you can look at some other numbers and see why they are 1-5-1 in those seven games. In five of them they’ve given up five goals or more. In three of the seven games they’ve scored one goal. Overall - not counting the goal you get for winning a shootout - they’ve allowed 31 and scored 15. They’ve given up seven power play goals and scored just three. That’s not going to get it done.

Giving up too many goals and coming up on the short end of the special teams battle was the story on Sunday.

It reminded me of the Washington game. The Stars got that game to overtime with goaltending and a couple of big power play goals. Colorado won Sunday afternoon with great goaltending from Craig Anderson and by scoring on two of their three power play chances. The Stars were 0-5 on the power play. Goaltending and special teams decide a lot of games and Colorado won that battle today. When you win those battles, even a 51-22 shot advantage can be negated. That’s what happened today. It’s executing in certain parts of the game. You fail to execute in a few key areas and your chances of winning drop, regardless of any territorial advantage you might hold.

The turning point in the game, I thought, was Brandon Segal picking up the extra minor for roughing in that fight with Matt Hendricks, who had just nailed Karlis Skrastins along the boards. Stars had a 3-2 lead at the time, Colorado goes on the power play and Paul Stastny deflects a shot by Marty Turco to tie the game and a couple minutes later Chris Stewart scores on a wrap-around to give Colorado the lead for good and that was it for Turco, who gave up four goals on 18 shots.

The Stars miss on a couple of power play chances in the third and Stastny scores again to extend the lead. Give the Stars credit for keeping to pound away at Anderson, but he was brilliant. He was a difference maker tonight and has been for Colorado all season. 

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