Uh oh…

The Stars defense has given up 5 in each of the last 2 games. Toronto has scored 5, 6, and 7 in their last three outings. Wowza. When you add those two things up it’s not hard to tell what the Stars and their spare defensive corps and poor penalty killing are going to be expecting on Tuesday night. Murder north of the border is likely.

Still, if the Stars are dealt defeat at the hands of their foes rather than at the hands of the zebras like on Saturday night that would be an improvement. The slashing calls on Barch (especially) and Niskanen were two of the worst calls anyone has ever seen. Ever. That being said, the Stars PK has to get better. They continue to hang their net minder out to dry, and if I were him I’d be mad.

So apart from the 7-2 beating Canada’s best hockey market (No Stanley cups since there were only 6 teams in the league in the 60’s? Haven’t made the playoffs since 2004? Well at least you’ve got all that media coverage…) is about to lay on the hapless Stars Tuesday night, what else is going on?

Loui Eriksson garnered 1st Star of the Week from the NHL, and well deserved. 6 goals in 3 games will do that for you. But consistency is the name of the game, so we expect him to keep it up, or suffer the consequences. (Right now the consequences are “miss the playoffs by a lot” or “miss the playoffs by a little”)

James Neal seems to be skating with Modano and Ott at practice…a line I will watch with great interest. Brunnstrom with Ribeiro (a stretch if you ask me) and Eriksson stays with Richards, a good call.

Hopefully Grossman will be back after a reportedly horrific battle with the flu the other day…and of course he’ll be joined by Robidas and 4 large orange stationary traffic cones, sometimes called Niskanen, Daley, Janik and Sydor.

The special teams have to get better. Both of them. That’s all there is to it.

Over/Under on how many times the Toronto play-by-play guy says “Mo-DAN-Oh” instead of the correct “Mo-DAWN-Oh”: 28.5