Goals against woes continue: Stars fall 6-5 in OT
The Dallas Stars held Alexander Ovechkin off the scoresheet, but that didn't help them solve their goals against woes. For the sixth time in nine games the Stars gave up four or more goals in a game, falling 6-5 in overtime to the Washington Capitals Saturday night at the American Airlines Center.
"The goals against is a joke right now," Tippett said. "There are a lot of guilty parties out there. You have to evaluate your personnel, how they are playing, who is making mistakes. It is not the way we do things around here, to have to score seven goals to win."
The Stars got to five goals on this night when Mike Modano scored with 57 seconds left in regulation to tie the game at 5-5, but the Capitals bounced back in overtime when Alexander Semin got the puck in the right circle and rifled a shot over the shoulder of Stars goalie Marty Turco for the Capitals' sixth goal of the night.
It was another tough outing for Turco, who surrendered six goals on 24 shots. His goals against average ballooned to 4.26 and his save percentage dropped to .842 after Saturday's outing.
"Our goaltending hasn’t been very good," Tippett said.
Said Turco: "I feel good out there and I have a lot of energy. I’m seeing the puck well. Any time you give up goals, you wish you had them back."
Tippett said there's been discussion of giving Turco some down time, but that would mean the Stars would have to turn to inexperienced backup Tobias Stephan.
"We've thought about that (sitting Turco) for about two weeks now, but the other guy is unproven," Tippett said. "When he has got in there he hasn't exactly showed he's a go-to guy."
And Stephan might not be able to solve the problems on his own. The Stars' goals against woes go beyond just Turco. The Stars continue to be plagued by defensive breakdowns that lead to quality chances for the opposition.
"It seems to be a common trend that we are having breakdowns in front of our net," said center Mike Modano, who had a goal and two assists and scored with 57 seconds left in regulation to forced overtime. "They are a gifted, talented team and we got a point out of it but it just seems to be up and down every night."
The Stars have given up 38 goals in nine games this season for a team goals against average of 4.22. They've given up four goals once, five goals three times in a game and six goals twice.
The Stars, who dropped to 3-4-2 on the season and 1-1-2 at home, have yet to win back-to-back games this season.
They took the lead on Sean Avery's first goal as a Star 10:19 into the game, but the Stars played catch up most of the night. They had to overcome Washington leads of 2-1, 4-2 and 5-4 to eventually force the overtime. Besides Avery and Modano, the Stars got goals from Fabian Brunnstrom, Loui Eriksson, and B.J. Crombeen, whose tally was his first NHL goal.
Washington, which got two goals from both Sergei Fedorov and Tomas Fleischmann and a goal and two assists from Semin, snapped a three-game winless streak (0-2-1) with the win and improved to 4-3-1 on the season.
“We’ve always been resilient,” Washington coach Bruce Boudreau said. “You can see the passion we have by how we reacted when we scored the overtime goal.”
But there was little celebration on the Dallas side. The Stars got a point of the out game, but they know the way they are playing right now isn't paving the way to success.
“We hung in there and got a point out of it," Modano said. "But we are not going to be too successful giving up five or six goals a night"
Said Tippett: "It's great to get the point but if we keep playing like this, there won't be a lot of points."
| Game Recap |
| First Period |
| The Stars struck 10:19 into the game when
Sean Avery scored his first goal as a Stars, picking off the
rebound of a B.J. Crombeen shot and scoring from the left circle. But less than a minute later Crombeen took a slashing penalty, putting Washington on the power play and the Caps cashed in on the chance. Sergei Fedorov scored from the slot at 12:38 to tie the game. Washington took the lead later in the period when Fabian Brunnstrom turned the puck over to Tomas Fleischmann at the Washington blue line and then Fleischmann took a pass from Michael Nylander at the other end of the ice and beat Turco from the slot to put the Caps up 2-1 at the 16:58 mark. The Stars drew even on their second power play
chance of the game. Avery backhanded a pass from behind the net
to Brunnstrom, who scored from close range with just ten seconds
left in the period. |
| Second Period |
| The Capitals scored twice in less than four
minutes to take a 4-2 lead. The first one came at 11:23 when
Alexander Semin stepped around Philippe Boucher along the left
boards and set up Fedorov, who beat Turco with a backhand shot
from close range.
The Caps struck again when Turco's pass up the middle was intercepted and the end result was Fleischmann scoring on a wrist shot at 15:16. But 39 seconds later the Stars pulled to within 4-3 when Trevor Daley's shot on net from the right wing was knocked into the net by Crombeen. Washington almost made it a 5-3 game with a
power play goal late in the period, but a diving poke check by
Mark Fistric prevented Nylander from pushing the puck into a
wide open net. |
| Third Period |
| The Stars tied the game 56 seconds into the
third when Mike Ribeiro put a shot on net off the rush and Loui
Eriksson scored off the rebound to make it a 4-4 game.
But it didn't take Washington long to get the lead back. Tyler Sloan scored off the rebound of a Viktor Kozlov shot at 2:22 to give the Caps a 5-4 lead. Both teams had some good chances, but Turco and Washington's Jose Theodore came up with good stops to keep it a 5-4 game. The Stars forced the overtime when Brenden Morrow sent a pass from behind the net to Mike Modano, who put the puck just inside the post with 57 seconds remaining to tie the game at 5-5. Score at the end of regulation:
Dallas 5, Washington 5 |
| Overtime |
| Semin got to a loose puck in the right circle, worked himself into shooting position and rifled a shot over Turco's shoulder 2:17 into overtime to give Washington the 6-5 win. |
| Final score: Washington 6, Dallas 5 Overtime shots on goal: Dallas 2, Washington 1 Total Shots on goal: Dallas 33, Washington 30 |
| Official Scoresheet | Official Super Stats |
