Stars-Blackhawks thoughts

I don’t know what to what to say anymore. They show glimpses of being very good and then the wheels come off and you get one of these losses where they give up five or six goals. If they were 11-4-2 heading into this game and played like this you wouldn’t read too much into it. But when this team is consistently inconsistent where they can’t string together a couple wins, you read a lot into games like these.

This was game No. 18. We’re almost at the quarter mark of the season. I think 20 games is the point where a lot of people think you can accurately tell what you’ve got in a team and right now the Stars have a lot of issues. For what ever reason they just can’t play complete games. If it’s not one area of the game letting them down, it’s another area. The power play comes up big but the penalty kill continues to struggle. Those goals they gave up at the end of the first and second period were killers. I thought the Patrick Kane goal at the end of the first period basically changed the whole complexion of the game. Momentum is a big part of the game and I think Chicago got it there. They may have started to build some earlier in the first, but that goal was huge. The Kris Versteeg goal at the end of the second obviously turned out to be the game-winner.

There were some breakdowns again. Marty Turco had a rough night. It looked like a game from a few weeks ago. Again, under different circumstances, a game like this would be no big deal. Under the current circumstances it is a big deal.

They’ve played 18 games and won six. They are tied with Florida for the worst points percentage in the league at .417. Only Tampa Bay has fewer wins. Only Colorado and Florida have more regulation losses.

There aren’t many you can look at right now and say the Stars do this well on a consistent basis and that’s why they are where they are. When things start to go wrong for them it just rolls into one giant snowball that flattens them. They looked dominating and in control in the first period Thursday night and by the third period they looked rattled and beaten. Chicago was the team in control.

Overall, it was a disappointing game. I think that is the bottom line. They need to start stringing some wins together and they failed to do it.

On a side note, Brenden Morrow got banged up in the third period and left the game. More should be known about him tomorrow. Hopefully he won’t miss any time because I’m not sure they have cap room to call up anyone short-term.

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