Stars’ rally falls short in 5-4 loss to Colorado
/Andrew's Dallas Stars Page
The Dallas Stars almost staged a brilliant third period comeback Saturday afternoon, but then the final horn sounded at the American Airlines Center the bottom line result was another loss where they gave up a lot of goals to their opposition. Final score: Colorado 5, Dallas 4.
"Losing is losing, but losing when you are giving up five a night that's really losing," said Stars coach Dave Tippett. "That goes against everything I believe right there. I know it digs at our coaching staff and I know it digs at our players. We know what it is expected around here."
The Stars have now given up 23 goals in their first five games, which they have posted a 1-3-1 record. Goalie Marty Turco, who gave up five goals on 22 shots, saw his goals against average balloon to 4.70 and his save percentage shrink to .814 following this outing.
"It's just frustrating losing," Turco said. "I've got plenty of faith in myself."
But it wasn't all Turco. The Stars started off strong, but a couple of turnovers in the first period led to Colorado odd-man rushes that resulted in Avalanche goals and had them up 2-1 at the first intermission.
"I thought early on in the game were playing pretty well, but we made some crucial errors than ended up in the back of our net and now we are chasing the game," said Tippett.
Colorado blew the game open with a couple of power play goals and another one off a Turco turnover in the second period, which gave Colorado a 5-2 lead heading into the third period.
The Stars made a game of it scoring twice in the third to cut the lead to 5-4, but could not get the game-tying tally. They thought they had it with 7:31 left when Brenden Morrow redirected a Brad Richards' pass into the net, but a video review showed that the went in on Morrow's glove and the goal was disallowed.
Morrow insisted the goal should have stood because he didn't intentionally knock the puck into the goal with his hand.
"It's not intentional," Morrow said. "It hit me but I didn't intentionally knock it in with my glove. It's a bad call."
The Stars kept pushing after the no goal call, but weren't able to get that fifth goal and dropped their fourth game in five tries this season.
Colorado won its second straight game after opening the season with three straight losses. Milan Hejduk led the charge with two goals and Paul Stastny had three assists.
"They were coming hard in the third period and we were able to weather the storm," Avalanche captain Joe Sakic said. "We feel like we should be better than we are."
The Stars got goals from Fabian Brunnstrom, James Neal, Loui Eriksson and Richards. Eriksson and Richards also picked up assists as well.
"We've got to continue to grow as a team. I think there were some positive things. Our young guys keep pushing," said Tippett. "I thought that was Loui Eriksson's best game of the year. But we've got to clean up some of the mistakes because everyone of them is ending up in our net."
| Game Recap |
| First Period |
| The Stars started out strong, but the
Avalanche struck first to take a 1-0 lead 6;44 into the game.
After a Mike Modano turnover the Avalanche got a two-on-one rush
and Milan Hejduk finished it off to put Colorado up. The Stars
drew even at 16:25, cashing in on their first power play of the
game. Brenden Morrow sent a pass from the side of the net to
Fabian Brunnstrom, who beat Avs goalie Andrew Raycroft from
close range. But the Avs got their lead back 1:14 later when
Trevor Daley couldn't handle a Sean Avery pass in the Colorado
zone and Wojtek Wolski beat Daley to the puck, setting up
another two-on-rush for Colorado. Darcy Tucker beat Marty Turco
with a wrist shot to finish off that one to make it 2-1 after
one period. There were two fights in the first 20 minutes. Steve
Ott got the better of Colorado's Ian Laperriere and Nicklas
Grossman got the upper hand in a scrap with Avs forward Cody
McCormick. Score after first period: Colorado 2, Dallas 1 First period shots on goal: Dallas 10, Colorado 9 |
| Second Period |
| The Stars got off to a good start in the
second, scoring 13 seconds into period to tie the game 2-2. Mike
Modano sent a pass from behind to the goal line to James Neal,
who scored from the slot. After that it was all Avs, who scored
three straight goals to take command of the game. Hejduk scored
off a one-timer on the power play at 5:29 to give Colorado a 3-2
lead at the 5:29 mark. Colorado scored again on the power play
at 13:06 when John-Michael Liles put a shot on net and Ryan
Smyth scored on the rebound to make it 4-2. Colorado scored
again when Turco lost the puck behind the net to Wolski, who
sent the puck to Tyler Arnason, who put it into a wide open net
at 18:05 of the second to make it a 5-2 game. Score after second period: Colorado 5, Dallas 2 Second period shots on goal: Colorado 9, Dallas 7 |
| Third Period |
| The Stars made a game of it in the third
period, scoring twice to cut the Colorado lead to 5-4. Mike
Ribeiro set up Loui Eriksson just after a Stars power play
expired and Eriksson scored from the left faceoff circle to make
it a 5-3 game 2:00 into the third period. Brad Richards made it
5-4 when he scored at 6:47 of the third on a shot from the slot.
But the Stars couldn't get the equalizer. They appeared to get
the game-tying goal with 7:31 remaining when Morrow directed a
Richards' pass into the net. But a video review showed the puck
went off Morrow's glove and was disallowed.
Final score: Colorado 5, Dallas 4 |
| Official Scoresheet | Official Super Stats |
