Stars fall in 2-1 in Columbus
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page
It was the beginning of a new era for the Columbus Blue Jackets Thursday night. It was the same old story on the road for the Dallas Stars. The Blue Jackets, in interim coach Claude Noel's first game behind bench, won 2-1, handing the Stars their 12th defeat in their last 13 road games.
"Overall, I thought we played a real solid game," said Stars coach Marc Crawford. "We had the better of the chances. Their goalie played great. We needed a little more urgency and where it really showed was probably on the power plays."
The Stars had all three power plays in the game and could not score and got only three shots. Two of the power plays came late in the third period with the team down 1-0.
"We would like to have the wherewithal to handle the moment of that situation," said Crawford. "It seemed like we had four guys going and one guy not going on the power plays."
The loss dropped the Stars to 1-10-2 in their last 13 road games and kept them three points out of the final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Stars got another solid game out of goalie Marty Turco, who stopped 24 of 25 shots. It was the second time this season Turco has allowed only one goal in a game at Columbus and lost.
"The road has been our nemesis all year," said Turco. "Tonight's game isn't going to give us any confidence. ... We've played some good games, don't get wrong, just not good enough to win."
The Blue Jackets scored the only goal of the first period. Fredrik Modin sent the puck to Anton Stralman, who beat a screened Turco with a one-timer from the right point 15:00 into the game.
The game stayed 1:00 until late in the third period when the Stars pulled Turco and R.J. Umberger won a race to a puck and then scored an empty net goal while sliding on his stomach to make it a 2-0 game with 1:03 remaining.
The Stars made in interesting when Brad Richards scored off a shot from the left point with 46.4 seconds to go to pull the Stars to within one goal, but they couldn't get the equalizer.
The Blue Jackets were playing their first game since the firing of Ken Hitchcock, who was replaced by Noel on Wednesday.
"We looked like a different team," said Columbus captain Rick Nash. "A totally different vibe out there tonight. It was nice."
The Stars return home to take on Phoenix Saturday and then hit the road for a three-game trip that will take them into the Olympic break.
| Game Recap |
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Columbus scored the only goal
of the first period when Anton Stralman scored on a one-timer
shot from the right point at the 15:00 mark.
The Stars had one power play in the first period and two in the third, but could not cash in. They pulled Turco late in the third and R.J. Umberger won a puck race and scored into an open net with 1:08 remaining to make it a 2-0 game. With Turco out of net again Brad Richards scored with 46.4 seconds remaining to make it a 2-1 game, but Dallas could not get the equalizer. |
| Quotable |
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"Everyone deals with
(injuries). We're not going to use it as an excuse. We've got to
find a way. Opportunities are there for certain people. We
needed everybody on deck, and we had a few guys that didn't play
at the level they needed to play at. That's a little bit
disparaging. But for the most part you can't argue with our
effort because it was there." - Stars coach Marc Crawford, who
team was missing center Mike Modano, Mike Ribeiro and Tom
Wandell in the game. "It was tremendous, but very nerve-racking. It was really good for me. I got about two hours of sleep last night and one this afternoon." - Columbus interim head coach Claude Noel, on his first game "I thought Steve was remarkable. I thought he was really good. His handoffs to the defenseman were really good and he made a couple of huge saves that saved us. I thought he was very resilient." - Noel, on goalie Steve Mason |
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