Slow starting Stars fall to Coyotes
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page
By the time the Stars got going Sunday afternoon they were already down 2-0 to the Phoenix Coyotes, and that's a tough hill to climb. The Stars couldn't make the climb and the end result was a 4-2 loss at American Airlines Center and another thwarted attempt at a three-game winning streak.
"It's a tough one to take," said Stars center Brad Richards. "We didn't play a full 60 minutes. It was a little too late to turn it on. Our goals against were blatant mistakes by us."
The loss snapped a five-game home winning streak for the Stars, who missed a chance to pull to within one point of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. They remain in tenth place, three points out.
"We made some big mistakes tonight that ended up in our net. We didn't make very many, probably the number of goals that we had against us tonight were just the big mistakes that we made," said Stars coach Marc Crawford. "Small mistake on coverage in our zone ends up in our net. A missed pass by a guy that's our most reliable defensemen ends up in our net, and a real questionable decision by Karlis and that ended up in our net as well.
"They made by far way more mistakes than us and they difference was they got some huge goaltending from their guy. We've got to take responsibility to change the things we can change."
Phoenix, which played the night before, came out with a lot of jump, outshooting the Stars 15-5 in the first period and scoring the lone goal when a wide open defenseman Keith Yandle pinched in from the point, took a pass from Shane Doan and put a puck into the open side of the net.
A turnover by defenseman Stephane Robidas early in the second period resulted in Doan setting up Peter Mueller to put the Coyotes up 2-0. The Stars cut the lead to 2-1 on a goal by Steve Ott, but Phoenix extended the lead early in the third period when Karlis Skrastins tried to knock down a puck out of midair at the Phoenix blue line and missed it, leading to Radim Vrbata getting a breakaway goal. The Stars made it 3-2 on a Fabian Brunnstrom goal with 7:02 remaining in the game, but just 11 seconds later Doan beat Stars goalie Alex Auld with a shot from distance to make it a 4-2 game.
The Stars outshot the Coyotes 40-31 in the game, including 35-16 over the final two periods, but Phoenix goalie Ilya Bryzgalov was outstanding. He made 22 saves in the third period alone.
"He was really good in the third, obviously," said Richards. "With all of us banging the net, crashing the net, you'd think one of those would go in, but it didn't."
Phoenix won its fourth straight game, seventh in its last nine and improved to 33-18-5 on the season, good enough for fourth place in the Western Conference.
"I thought our guys competed really hard. I was really proud of them," said Phoenix coach Dave Tippett, who was coaching his first game in Dallas since being let go as Stars coach last summer. "That's a tough turnaround with two games in less than 24 hours. To come in here and sit and play against a rested team, that was a heck of an effort by our guys."
The Stars wrap up their four-game homestand when take on the Minnesota Wild Tuesday in a nationally televised game on Versus.
| Game Recap |
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The Coyotes outshot the Stars
15-5 in the first period and scored the only goal. That came at
the 4:41 mark when Shane Doan sent a cross-ice pass to wide open
defenseman Keith Yandle, who had pinched to the bottom of the
right circle and then put the puck into the open side of the
net.
Stars goalie Alex Auld made two big stops to keep it a 1-0 game, stopping Radim Vrbata's close range shot and then stopping Petr Prucha a short time later. Phoenix extended its lead to 2-0 2:26 into the second period. Peter Mueller picked off a Stephane Robidas pass in the Dallas zone, sent the puck to Doan, took a return pass and put the puck into the open side of the net. The Stars picked up the pace and the pressure after that and cut the lead to 2-1 at the 7:07 mark. After Alex Auld got the Stars going on the rush, Steve Ott stopped just inside the Phoenix blue line, Jamie Benn set a screen in front of Coyotes goalie Ilya Bryzgalov and Ott scored off a slap shot from the right point. Both teams had a power play chance after that in the period, but neither could cash in. The Stars lost forward Brian Sutherby to an upper body injury in the second. He left the game and did not return. Phoenix made it a 3-1 game at 4:37 of the third period when Stars defenseman Karlis Skrastins fanned on a keep attempt at the Phoenix blue line, Vrbata got a breakaway and finished off the chance. The Stars cut the lead to 3-2 with 7:02 remaining when Toby Petersen centered a puck from behind the net and Fabian Brunnstrom kept hammering away at the puck until he finally knocked it by Bryzgalov. But just eleven seconds after Brunnstrom's goal, Doan beat Auld with a slap shot from distance to make it a 4-2 game. After that it was all Bryzgalov, who came up with several nice saves as the Stars put on a lot of pressure trying to get two goals to tie the game. |
| Quotable |
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"We didn't have a very good
start. I thought we were the better team the last 40 minutes of
the game, so we weathered a poor start, only behind 1-0. I
thought that usually when you do that, you've found your game. I
thought we had a great start to the second period. Krys Barch
really went out and started to get us in the game physically and
I thought that was followed up with real physicality by people
like Ott and Benn, Morrow, those types of guys. We looked like
we were more into the game. We made it 2-1 but never could quite
get it to a tie, we were always looking for a comeback goal and
that's a tough way to play." - Stars coach Marc Crawford "They're a really good team as it is, but a lot better team with a lead." - Stars center Brad Richards on the Phoenix Coyotes "We said before the game we've got to come out strong because we knew they were playing last night. They've been playing a lot lately. So we wanted a good start, but they came out skating hard, and I don't think we were ready for them. So they got a good start on us and we gave up a couple of goals." - Stars defenseman Nicklas Grossman "I think that you're naive if you don't see [that this game was special for Dave Tippett]. You hear about it and you read about it, and at the same time we know how good Dallas is and that they're trying to make a run and we want to make it as hard as we can on them." - Phoenix captain Shane Doan |
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