Dallas Stars

One last hurrah

Put away your brooms, the Stars sucked it up and gave us what I suspect is one last celebration last night, defeating the Red Wings 3-1. They were out-shot, out-chanced, and “out-face-offed” (I’m sure that’s a word, don’t look it up) but not out-goal-tended as Marty was good…and lucky. Both teams hit the post. Who are we to complain?

Last night was about celebrating the post-season for Stars fans, the entire post-season. We were going to give them a nice round of applause anyway, it was nice to give them one after a win. A Conference Final, and hockey coming up on May 17th should still be viewed as a huge positive for this franchise. We were all hoping and praying for a first round win, and we got a lot more. This is a good experience for the youngsters, and hopefully will keep some of our old horses motivated thinking maybe they can do something next year.

As far as the hockey went…the Stars had a lot of good chances they didn’t capitalize on in the first period, just like the other games, but they were able to hold it together on the defensive end this time. Still, the Wings are dominating them and it’s plain to see that the Stars are beaten and tired. The Stars have quite a few injuries they’re playing though, I think. If the Wings had Franzen last night it would’ve been over early. Watching Cleary try to do his job in front of Marty is a joke compared to the way the “Mule” does it.

On the no-goal call: It was a terrible call. “Butt in the crease?” That’s stupid. But it’s also a good example of “what goes around comes around.” Holmstrum could have been called for far worse several times in game 1, and wasn’t. He also could have been called for interference on the play right before that non-goal last night, and wasn’t. Why cheating is allowed in some games and not others is a mystery to me (and the Wings), but it’s not going to change the outcome of the series.

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Here is a list of some people who had less ice time than Toby Petersen:

Mike Modano
Brad Richards
Mike Ribeiro
Hagman, Grossman, on and on…

He’s playing on the PK, he’s playing on the PP. He played against Datsyuk and Zetterberg last night. Do they think he’s that good? Or is he just a fresh pair of legs that’s fighting for his job next year? Probably the latter. The Stars are beat up pretty badly, and he’s reaping the benefits. Also, Tipp’s trying to consolidate the talent to two lines, leaving more time for guys like Petersen. But still…the guy does 2 things every night that make me want to take up smoking. And now he’s a 20 minute guy? The playoffs are a strange animal.

The Stars will lick their wounds and fly back up to Detroit. Push the tee times back to Monday, boys. One more kick in the groin coming for you on Saturday.

“Have a good summer”

Yes, the Stars will be cleaning out their desks and signing year books later this week. Summer time is here again.

A statistical analysis of game 3 would reveal little that we don’t already know. You may as well examine stats from the regular season, because this was a foregone conclusion. The Red Wings allowed the fewest goals this season in the league. Number 1 in goals against. Goals for? They were only 5 goals short of league leading Montreal. They essentially have the best defense AND the best offense in the league, and that’s what it looks like out there. What are we supposed to do against that?

The Stars had a spirited first 8 minutes or so, and Osgood finally played his first hockey of the series last night. They couldn’t get the lead, and then the inevitable counter-punch was a real doozy. Then the Stars score, and immediately the Red Wings say “Oh yeah? Watch this!”

By the end of the game the Stars looked worn out and just confused. The Wings wear you out mentally and physically by playing their game of keep away. The team without the puck is the one working harder with their legs. It’s as disheartening to them as it is exhausting. The Red Wings are a machine. Give credit to their management for putting that roster together. I’m sure they knew those 6th and 7th round picks would turn into guys like Datsyuk right? Suuure they did.

But more than that, last night it looked like the young (and old) Dallas defense caught up to them. Zubov does not look healthy to me. His legs aren’t moving to match his brain. Could be age, could be the injuries, I don’t know. Niskanen made enough mistakes last night to warrant taking off a shoe to count them. I love the kid, he had a great first year, but he needs a little time. He’ll be ok. Grossman played well, his time last year helped him. Norstrum is too slow to play the Wings. Fistric…I’d rather see him in game 4 than Nisky, but what’s the difference at this point?

Detroit does all of the little things right. Face offs, getting pucks out of the zone (Everyone wave to Jere and Stu up in the press box) you name it, they do it better than the Stars. The thing that stands out the most between the teams, to me, is Detroit’s propensity to already know what to do with a puck before they have possession of it. Dallas passes the puck, accepts the pass, picks up their head to look around and see what’s going on…wasting time. Detroit is always pushing it up ice, or immediately relaying the puck to a better place; Decision making, in short. They’re just perfect right now.

I hope the league enjoys their dream matchup of Penguins/Red Wings. 100% of their broadcasts featuring Sydney is what they want anyway.

Thursday, I will give a blow by blow account of hand-shakes, proper hand shaking technique and etiquette, and YouTube links to outstanding handshakes, handshake out-takes, and the hand-shakes mom doesn’t want you to see. Stay Tuned!

Thud

That’s about all I have right now.

There are some walks down the stairs at the AAC that are longer than others. Tonight was one of those nights.

Oh well, oh well.

The little team that’s not supposed to be here writes the end of their story for another year. It was a pretty good run…but…ouch.

I don’t want to see the stats/box score until tomorrow…

Workplace Violence

As we near game time in this fateful game 3, I’m wondering what will happen tonight if the Wings get ahead by 3 or 4.

After all that business on Saturday, I would be shocked if a couple of Stars don’t get thrown out of the game, or maybe something suspension worthy. Ott has got to be on thin ice after the end of game 2, and he’s the mostly likely repeat offender.

Cowardly Ribeiro won’t do anything that stupid again…I don’t think.

Marty Turco has to be the dark horse candidate in all of this. Lost in the end of game 2, was Marty’s brilliant trip that sent (?) flying in the second period the other night. He also had some nice blockers to the backs of some heads.

I’m off to the arena soon, hoping to break that game plan of the Wings in the playoffs that reads like a shampoo bottle:

Come out blazing
Draw Penalty in the first 6 minutes
Score on power play
Rinse
Repeat

Wheels Off

A fun month is coming to a frustrating end for our boys in black. By the end of game 2, the Stars were wearing that frustration on their sleeves. Not with Osgood mind you, with the Detroit defense. Osgood has been rather pedestrian in this series, and why shouldn’t he be when he’s only seeing 18 shots. Turco stopped 94% of what he saw on Saturday, and Osgood stopped 94% of what he saw on Saturday. Goal tending is a non issue.

The Stars actually did a good job of limiting the quality chances the Red Wings had on Saturday, but in the end Tomas Holmstrom won the game for them because he is large and annoying. I don’t think he had to work particularly hard to become that way, so you really can’t give him much credit.

I credit the Red Wing defense. They bend, but they don’t break. The Stars had a lot of good “scoring chances” that did not end in a shot on goal.

At least if the Stars play this way, they can say they actually gave a good effort. That’s all we want.

Oh and Chris Osgood: Nice, dude. Anyone who’s ever been anywhere near a goal tender knows you have about 4 inches of padding right there, and they also know that Mike Ribeiro is a **ssy. He would needed a gun to hurt you there. Nice flop though. Lie on the ice a little longer next time.

I will be in attendance tonight for the proverbial end of the season, should the Stars again fail to score at least 3 goals.

Face full of Swede

That pretty much says it all. Foot in crease, his right leg on the blocker and/or stick. Ass in face.

I don’t think we have the personnel to deal with this. He’s like 2 feet taller than Daley and Robi.

Game 1: As expected

That, anyone who watches hockey will tell you, is what was expected from the Stars and Red Wings.

Some will say that the Stars have a game 6 hangover…physically, emotionally… whatever. Don’t buy that. Some will blame Marty Turco for not getting a win when his team scored only one goal for him, and never had the puck. That has no place in an intelligent conversation. Some will blame the officials for not letting the teams play. I don’t.

No, I think it’s pretty clear that in the NHL, there is everyone else, and then there are the Red Wings.

The Stars have gone through their division foes by playing opportunistic, patient hockey. They waited for the Ducks and Sharks to make mistakes. Well, what do you do if your opponent doesn’t make any mistakes? Detroit played a perfect game, and the Stars just looked completely lost. The Red Wings game plan was perfect, but that’s not the Stars real problem.

Their real problem, is that they just can’t compete with the Wings skill, size, smarts and speed. The Stars couldn’t even dump the puck in because the Wings players are so talented that they just knock the puck out of mid air in the neutral zone and start advancing it the other way. It looked like men vs boys out there. The face off disparity played a big role. They can’t match the Wings speed or athleticism. They are just completely outclassed. I thought the Wings might score during a line change last night. Everything they did looked dangerous.

The rookie defense of the Stars has no chance whatsoever vs the likes of Franzen and Holmstrom. Trevor Daley looks like a little kid trying to push over a school bus against them. Marty Turco stopped every shot he could actually see last night but one, and it didn’t matter at that point. If the Stars can’t move the Wings out of Marty’s kitchen, they have no chance. You cannot ask your goaltender to stop shots he can’t see, and only give him only one goal in support.

I’m glad we’re here. Two winning hand shakes on home ice this season is a lot better than anyone had dreamed of in October, but the ride is coming to a grinding, violent halt.

Falling (former) Star

Our thoughts go out to former Dallas Star and all around awesome guy Jeff Halpern today, who sprained his MCL and ruptured his ACL, playing for his country. It’s the best country, by the way. Look it up. (What? There’s an international tournament going on?)

Ruptured ACL? “Ouchy!!”. (Incidentally, the fine spell checking of Firefox would like to replace the word “ouchy” with “duchy,” which looks an awful lot like another word I’d use to describe certain team captains jumping over Mike Modano slap shots)

We’re pulling for you buddy, hope you come back strong. Although…we’re kind of glad you don’t play for us any more. No offense, but having a guy out until January is a bummer, and Brad Richards…well he’s just swell.

Say hi to Jussi for us.

WCF Preview

As Stars fans start turning their attention from past to future, it starts to become pretty clear what a large dog the Stars are in this series. When you take a look at the match ups, where exactly can the Stars find an edge? Offense? nope. Defense? nope. Goal tending?…maybe so, but only just a little one.

The Stars have 360 shots in 12 games for an average of: 30 per game. This is with a quadruple OT included. The real number is more like 27 per 3 periods.
The Wings have 393 shots in 10 games for an average of: 39.3

That’s about 10+ a game to the Red Wings, and it shows in the goals per game average, a 3.8 to 2.91 edge for the Wings.

That age old adage of 10 shots = a goal in the NHL holds pretty true there. How can the Stars limit the Wings shots? Even if Marty continues to save .929 of the shots, that’s still going to be about 2.8 goal per game for the Wings. Marty Turco will have to be even better this series than he has in the last 2 to give his team a chance. The rookie heavy defense of the Stars must limit opportunities for the Wings, and try to keep them to the perimeter of the ice while they have the puck, which is usually about 80% of the time when these teams play.

There are some who think the way to beat the Wings is to rough them up a little bit. The Stars have seen that show before. The Ducks tried it and now they’re ogling the beer girl. That will only get the Stars in the box, which is the thing they have to avoid above all else this series.

Then there is the matter of Marty’s history at the Joe. He has never won there. Ever. Not even once. He has a couple of ties…hooray.

The Wings beat you because they are good defensively, they always score on the power play, and their top offensive line is also their top defensive line. The Stars best offensive line is also one of their worst defensive lines. So if Detroit gets the match ups they want in games 1 and 2, Datsyuk and Zetterberg will be taking possession of the puck away from Ribeiro and Morrow, while making them work on the defensive end. That puts a lot of pressure on Richards and Modano to help offensively, and with Zetterberg and Datsyuk taking care of Ribs/Morrow, they can keep Lidstrom or whoever they want on defense against the Richards line.

They don’t play the games on paper though. Marty Turco and Brenden Morrow have a fire in their eyes. They have to spark their team to overachieve. We’re surprised they’ve come this far, and so proud of them.

Put all this together and I’m left with the extremely homer-ish prediction of Wings in 6, because thinking the Stars can win 2 games might be a bit of a stretch.

17 minutes

Much is being written today about the 8th longest OT in NHL playoff history, and the fabulous display that the 69:03 provided to those who braved the late night hours to see it. As the dust settles, or rather the streamers from the AAC rafters, I am much more interested in the 17 minutes between period 3 and the first overtime. Something changed. In a microcosm of their season, the Stars saw a good thing slip away in the 3rd, and to borrow a basketball expression, the Sharks were “running them out of the gym” with only Marty Turco providing the effort to extend the game. It felt like just a matter of time before they were done.

Then, like their transition from March to April, a light went on in their collective head and they remembered how to play inspired hockey just in time for overtime to begin. With Morrow, Richards and Ribeiro leading the way, the Stars played the aggressive hockey we’ve wanted them to all along.

I don’t know what happened during that intermission that turned the Stars engines on like that, but I liked it. As the 3rd period wore on, it seemed the Stars already had one foot on the plane back to San Jose. I was scared, I was feeling pretty defeated. You have to give them credit for coming out like that in OT. I don’t know how many teams would’ve done that. Well, except for the Sharks. They were pretty darned good as well.

Miscellaneous notes from last night:

-The AAC crowd was great. Give yourselves a hand, after your nap.

-Brenden Morrow: I don’t know what’s left to say about him. If you want to be a hockey player, you need to start asking yourself W.W.B.M.D? and just do that. He’s the perfect Captain.

-Mike Modano has survived in this league by adapting his game. He’s not a Selke finalist this year, but I don’t think that’s a ridiculous conversation to have.

-Mike Ribeiro: some of the defensive plays he made in OT last night were impressive, and every bit as important as his many helpers in this series. Are they checking this guy out in Montreal? Niinimaa for Ribeiro. Best trade ever.

-The Sharks scare the heck out of me. I can’t believe they’re going to can their coach. As long as you have Nabokov, Thornton, Cheechoo and those guys, I see no reason to think you can’t win the division again next year. I guess that’s not good enough for them anymore.

-Hand pass? Just saying.

-I don’t like penalty calls in OT, but the ones that were called needed to be called. I think the officials tried to let the players decide it as much as they possibly could. Unlike game 5…

-If the Stars had done as expected, and the Sharks were bounced by Anaheim, would Dallas be interviewing Ron Wilson next month? Funny how things work out.

-Razor: You should trademark “Turkolicious” before there are T-shirt sales you’re missing out on.