UPDATE 11 AM CST
Ray Whitney, who took his turn in the shootout last night and skated 20:48 of ice time, took a turn for the worse after the game. He was apparently playing through a lower-body injury of some sort that felt worse after the game.
The Stars have placed the 40-year-old winger on injured reserve. Reilly Smith has been recalled from the Texas Stars to fill the roster spot.
PREVIEW 7:15 AM CST
The venue switches from Big D to the Arizona desert tonight as the Dallas Stars (3-4-1) and the Phoenix Coyotes (2-4-2) complete the back end of a weekend home-and-home. The match is also the start of a three-game road swing for the Stars. Tonight's game starts at 7:30 p.m. CST and will be televised locally on Fox Sports Southwest.
This is the third of four meetings between the teams during the lockout shortened season. Dallas has won each of the first two games. On opening of the regular season, two goals and two assists by Jaromir Jagr and a game-winnng goal and assist by Loui Eriksson powered a 4-3 Dallas victory. Last night, the Stars prevailed, 4-3 via shootout.
The youngsters delivered early for Dallas. The Stars led 2-0 in the first period courtesy of rookies Antoine Roussel (in his NHL debut) and defenseman Brenden Dillon scoring their first career NHL goals. According to a stat presented after the game, Dillon's assist on the Roussel goal and second period fight with Kyle Chipchurra completed the first Gordie Howe Hat Trick by a Dallas defenseman in franchise history. I was surprised to learn that Derian Hatcher in his Stars prime never did it even once.
Dallas' early lead didn't last for very long, as Radim Vrbata (latter portion of the opening stanza) and then Martin Hanzal struck back to the game by the time the second period was less than one minute old. There was absolutely nothing goaltender Kari Lehtonen could have done to prevent either goal.
The Vrbata goal was a double-deflection on an initial point shot by Oliver Ekman-Larsson that also went off the stick of Jamie Benn. The Hanzal goal was a power play rebound partially enabled by some soft play down low by Stephane Robidas to allow him pretty much free reign with both his body position and stick.
Michael Ryder's fourth goal of the still-young season restored a 3-2 lead for the Stars at the 14:14 mark. The goal came moments after the Dillon-Chipchurra fight. On the play, he simply pulled up in the circle and fired a tracer past Mike Smith. It was probably a save that Mike Smith should have made, but Cody Eakin made a nice initial place and Ryder's shot had a lot of movement on it.
Hanzal's second goal of the game re-tied the game late in the second period. It was a line rush goal scored from the medium slot. The scoring chance developed quickly after the Stars initially seemed to have coverage but it was still one of those momentum saves a team needs. It was the lone play in the game where Lehtonen (31 saves) could remotely be questioned.
The latter part of the scoreless third period and the whole of overtime were played an at exciting, back-and-forth pace. Both Smith and Lehtonen came up big several times. The game moved to the skills competition finale.
Lehtonen stopped three of four. Smith stopped the first two authoritatively -- even showboating a little as he gloved Ray Whitney's attempt on the second shot. That came back to bite the former Stars' netminder a bit, as he got beaten cleanly upstairs on a forehand move him Jamie Benn (Loui Eriksson had tried the same thing in round one but couldn't elevate the shot) and then got gave up a rather leaky goal on the game winner. Jaromir Jagr slowed down and snapped off a powerful wrister from in tight, which hit Smith's glove, ticked off his pad and dribbled over the goal line.
Had Jagr's initial shot not had so much movement on it, it probably wouldn't have had enough steam to trickle in. Even so, Jagr really had nowhere to put the puck except into Smith, and it was a save that absolutely needed to be made cleanly with the game on the line. It goes to show how fortunes can change in such a hurry.
There will be a few lineup changes for tonight's rematch. Most notably, Phoenix forward Raffi Torres will come off the NHL's suspended list and make his season debut.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (subject to change)
STARS
21 Loui Eriksson - 14 Jamie Benn- 68 Jaromir Jagr
18 Reilly Smith - 20 Cody Eakin- 73 Michael Ryder
24 Eric Nystrom- 38 Vern Fiddler - 81 Tomas Vincour
10 Brenden Morrow - 60 Antoine Roussel - 40 Ryan Garbutt
4 Brenden Dillon - 3 Stephane Robidas
33 Alex Goligoski - 43 Jamie Oleksiak
58 Jordie Benn - 6 Trevor Daley
32 Kari Lehtonen
[31 Richard Bachman]
Healthy scratches: Tom Wandell, Philip Larsen, Aaron Rome.
Injuries: Ray Whitney (lower-body injured, placed on injured reserve today), Derek Roy (groin, could return on Monday), Cristopher Nilstorp (groin, day-to-day).
COYOTES
89 Mikkel Boedker - 50 Antoine Vermette - 19 Shane Doan
28 Lauri Korpikoski - 11 Martin Hanzal - 17 Radim Vrbata
37 Raffi Torres - 15 Boyd Gordon - 18 David Moss
12 Paul Bissonnette - 24 Kyle Chipchurra - 49 Alexandre Bolduc
23 Oliver Ekman-Larsson - 4 Zbynek Michalek
3 Keith Yandle - 53 Derek Morris
29 Michael Stone - 6 David Schlemko
41 Mke Smith
[1 Jason LaBarbera]
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