Red Wings blow away Stars 6-1

Friday, January 09, 2009-12:22:am
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page                            

The Dallas Stars have been playing better lately, but the Detroit Red Wings are playing their best hockey of the season and they showed why Thursday night at Joe Louis Arena. The Red Wings struck early and often, routing the Stars 6-1 for their fifth straight win. 

“We tried to use this game as a measuring stick and I guess it put us back to reality in a hurry,” Stars forward Steve Ott said. “They’re the top team in the league they pretty much embarrassed us for 60 minutes.”

It was an ugly night in Detroit for the Stars, who had come into the game feeling good about their recent play and needing points in a tight playoff race.

"This wasn't the way I envisioned this game going," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "Our execution was poor. These were two available points, and we weren't even close. Our group didn't play well, from the goaltender on out."

The Red Wings scored two goals in each period Thursday night. Marian Hossa tallied 4:07 into the game off a shot from the right boards and the Red Wings never looked back. They led 4-0 after two periods and chased Stars goalie Marty Turco, who gave up those four goals on 18 shots.

The last goal he gave up was a power play tally to Tomas Holmstrom, who blasted a shot through Turco from the right circle late in the second period.

"I can't let pucks go through me like that" said Turco, who is 0-8-2 at Joe Louis in the regular season and 3-11-5 in his career against the Red Wings.

Tobias Stephan took over in the third period.  After Loui Eriksson scored early in the third to make it a 4-1 game, the Red Wings scored to more times to make it a 6-1 final. Stephan ended up with 13 saves on 15 shots and had little chance on either goal scored against him.

Not much went right for the Stars. They put Detroit on nine power plays, and the red hot Red Wings power play scored on two of them.

"We had guys in the box I don't know how many times," Tippett said. "There just weren't a lot of positives tonight."

Stars defensemen Stephane Robidas, who took three minor penalties in the game, was in the penalty box for both Detroit power play goals.

"I just have to better," Robidas said. "I had a bad game and I had three bad penalties. Then they scored on two of them, and it's not a good feeling.

The Stars were 0-3 on the power play. There was 2:22 of four-on-four hockey played in the game and the Red Wings scored in that situation as well.

"It's tough to figure out what it is, but they just skate us into the ground and make us look like we are standing still," said Stars center Mike Modano.

The Stars are 6-3-1 in their last ten games, but have lost three of their last five and fell back to the .500 mark on the season at 17-17-5.

The Red Wings won their fifth straight game and improved to 8-1-1 over their last ten games. During their five-game winning streak they have outscored their opponents 22-7.

Linemates Dan Cleary, Henrik Zetterberg and Hossa all had one goal and one assist in the game. Pave Datsyuk also had a goal and an assist and Kirk Maltby and Tomas Holmstrom also scored. Defenseman Niklas Kronwall had three assists and Chris Osgood stopped 22 of 23 shots.

"Ozzie made a few saves early, then we settled in and looked after the puck pretty well," said Detroit coach Mike Babcock. "I thought the Zetterberg line was dominant early in the game with Hossa and Cleary. We had a lot good effort tonight."

And that goo effort provided a dominating win over the Stars.