Lehtonen stellar as Stars hammer Sharks 8-2
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page
Kari Lehtonen made his first start at American Airlines Center and was superb, stopping 45 of 47 shots. Mike Ribeiro and Brenden Morrow had big nights too, picking two goals and two assists each as the Dallas Stars ripped the San Jose Sharks 8-2.
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"Kari gave us some confidence and make some real big saves for us," said Morrow. "We snapped the puck around pretty good. I don't where it came from but just about every scoring opportunity we seemed to execute."
The eight goals, which included two power play tallies and two shorthanded, were a season high for the Stars At the other end of the ice Lehtonen was shutting the door on the Sharks.
The 26-year-old Lehtonen, acquired from Atlanta just before the Olympic break, was sharp from the start, making a nice stop on Torrey Mitchell early when the puck rebounded off the endboards and then denying a wide open Dan Boyle from the left circle when the game was still up for grabs. His best save came with the Stars protecting a 5-2 lead in the 3rd when he stuck out his left leg and got a skate on the puck to deny Dany Heatley's bid to slip the puck in the net.
"I thought we were really good in all areas tonight. It starts with your goaltender, and that was a terrific performance by Kari Lehtonen," said Stars coach Marc Crawford, who won his 500th game as an NHL coach. "I think you see a little bit more of what our organization saw in him. He had a lot more energy tonight. He made that spectacular save on Heatley. The score was 5-2 at that point, but still that was huge. It they get it, it's 5-3 and they're back in it. They're a high scoring team, and he was like that all night. He gave our group confidence."
This was Lehtonen's second NHL start since last April. His first one was a little more than week ago, a 6-3 loss in Pittsburgh.
"I think the first game in Pittsburgh I was a little bit too excited, and it ended up going pretty badly," Lehtonen said. "I was able to be more calm in net, and that really works for me best.
Lehtonen, who will get the start Thursday against Philadelphia, has been working his way back into playing shape following two offseason back surgeries.
"It's the best it's been," Lehtonen said of the back. "I don't know if it's 100-percent. I think it needs a few more games, but it was a huge step in the right direction, and it was nice to see that I'm able to play at this level again."
His teammates were playing at a high level on this night. The Stars got a power play goal from Richards in the first period and then goals by Toby Petersen, Brandon Segal and Morrow in a 5:12 span early in the second period made it a 4-0 game. San Jose cut it to 4-2, but back-to-back shorthanded goals by Ribeiro and Morrow extended the lead to 6-2. Steve Ott scored to make it 7-2 and Ribeiro added a power play goal to round out the scoring on the Sharks, who dropped their third straight game.
"The scoreboard doesn't lie tonight," said San Jose coach Todd McLellan. "It went from bad to worse. I can't stand here and make excuses for them. Obviously everybody watched it, saw how poorly we played. It wasn't something that we can just go pick two or three guys - it was a full team, so it was very frustrating. Obviously we've got some things to work on, and we'll have to start again tomorrow on it."
The Stars snapped a three-game winless streak and moved to within seven points of the final playoff spot in Western Conference with 13 games remaining. They continue their homestand Thursday against Philadelphia.
| Game Recap |
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The Stars got three power
plays in the first ten minutes of the game and cashed in on the
third one to score the only goal of the first period. Brad
Richards scored off a blast from the top of the right circle at
the 9:28 mark.
Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen was sharp in the first period, stopping all 13 shots he faced. The Stars scored three straight goals in the second period to build a 4-0 lead. The first one came at the 2:34 mark on what appeared to be an icing call on the Stars. The puck took a funny bounce off the endboards, however, and a hustling Toby Petersen got to it first and backhanded it by Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov. Less than two minutes later the Stars made it a 3-0 game when Brandon Segal deflected a Nicklas Grossman point shot past Nabokov at 4:30 of the second. Stars captain Brenden Morrow scored off a one-timer at 7:46 to make it a 4-0 game, ending the night of Nabokov who gave up four goals on 17 shots. Thomas Greiss took off at that point. The Stars' penalty kill came up big later in the period when Stephane Robidas took a major penalty (along with a game misconduct) for boarding. The Stars killed off the first 2:14 before San Jose's Rob Blake took a holding penalty to take San Jose off that power play for two minutes. San Jose finally got on the board with another power play chance. Dan Boyle beat Lehtonen with a shot from the left circle with 1:21 remaining to make it a 4-1 game heading into the third period. The Sharks cut the lead to 4-2 just 51 seconds into the third period when Devin Setoguchi scored from the slot. San Jose got a couple of power play chances, but the Stars scored shorthanded on both of them. Loui Eriksson chipped a puck out of the zone, won a race for the puck and centered the puck to Mike Ribeiro, who put it past Greiss to make it 5-2 at 6:56. Ribeiro set up Morrow on a two-on-one shorthanded rush at 10:02 to extend the lead to 6-2. Steve Ott scored off a deflection at 12:01 and Ribeiro scored on the power play at 15:53 to round out the scoring for the Stars. |
| Quotable |
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"You need your goaltender to
make saves, and he was big for us tonight. We managed to score
when we had our chances, but I think overall we didn't give them
much 5-on-5, and I think that's important, especially when
you're giving up six goals a game like we have since we got
back. So it was important to keep it tight and I think we did
that." - Stars center Mike Ribeiro "That was huge. I've been here now for maybe eight games, and I was thinking before the game that every game, the other team has scored first. It's kind of the mindset - I really wanted to see us score first and that happened, so I think that helped everybody and gave everybody a boost. That helped me a lot also, because we started scoring in the early second period. That was nice." - Stars goalie Kari Lehtonen, on Dallas getting the first goal of the game. "Absolutely, we're talking playoffs. That's our main focus right now. It's their for the grabbing. We've just got make sure we come out like tonight. Anything can happen." Stars forward Brandon Segal, on The Ticket postgame show We were good in a lot of areas tonight. We had guys who paid the price tonight. You start with just the fisticuffs of the two bouts Krys Barch got in. They were pretty inspirational to our group. He fought a very tough customer in Clowe, and then he had the other one with Leach. He did well in both of them and I thought that not oftentimes does a fight really inspire a club, but that did." - Stars coach Marc Crawford “I’m glad it’s out of the way. It means I’ve been around for awhile. - Stars coach Marc Crawford on winning his 500th game "We didn't show up in the second period and they took it to us. Our turnovers and sloppy play in the zone allowed them to capitalize. There's no way we thought they were going to just roll over and let us take two points. You've got to respond." - San Jose defenseman Rob Blake |
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