The Dallas Stars pulled above the .500 mark on the young season after last night's 3-1 home win over the heretofore red-hot Anaheim Ducks. The win was Dallas' third in a row, improving their season record to 6-5-1.
Dallas played arguably its best period of the year in the opening stanza, coming out skating with intensity and standing up physically to the Ducks. The Stars forged a 2-0 lead courtesy of a pair of power play goals. Trevor Daley scored his first goal since Dec. 31, 2011 to open the scoring for the Stars. After Brad Staubitz was given a major penalty and a game misconduct for spearing Brenden Dillon in the groin, Jamie Benn sniped a sharp-angle goal over Jonas Hiller.
Symbolic of the combative way the Stars met the challenge of playing Anaheim, Stephane Robidas challenged and then fought the much larger Corey Perry, getting a recently stitched cut over his lip reopened in the process.
The second period was the polar opposite of the opening stanza. Anaheim forechecked with ferocity, and it was the Stars who were faced with a series of penalty kills. At one juncture, the Ducks kept the stars pinned deep in their own end of the ice for over a minute, executing a complete line change while continuing to apply the pressure.
Dallas deserved credit for bending but not breaking, as they held most of the play along the perimeter. Even so, no team wants to spend nearly as much time in its own zone as the Stars did in the middle period.
In the second period, Kari Lehtonen turned in yeoman work in goal. He turned back 12 of 13 shots, to limit the damage to a single deflection power play goal by Nick Bonino.
The Stars did a fine job of going into shutdown mode in the third period. The Ducks generated only one shot over the final 20 minutes, while Loui Eriksson broke out of his scoring drought with an insurance goal midway through the period.
Last night's marquee matchup between Jaromir Jagr and Teemu Selanne did not produce any truly memorable plays by either future Hall of Famer. Neither one recorded a point.
Jagr had one great shift in the third period, circling out up high from the boards and then creating a scoring chance over the middle. Selanne had a near miss on a second-period power play chance, in which he wasn't quite able to corral a puck on the doorstep. The Finnish Flash also took a right circle faceoff where he ended up falling flat on his face and losing his helmet. Fortunately, he was OK.
The Stars head right back out on the road after the one-game sojourn in Dallas. They return to Edmonton on Tuesday, followed by games in Calgary and Vancouver.
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