PREVIEW 8:00 AM CST
Winners of four straight games, the Dallas Stars (7-5-1) will look to continue rolling in the middle game of their three-game Western Canada trip. Tonight, the team will pay a visit to the Calgary Flames (3-4-3). The game starts at 8:30 p.m. CST and will be televised locally on Fox Sports Southwest+ and nationally in Canada on TSN.
This is the first of three meetings between the teams this season, and the lone clash in Calgary. They'll rematch on Sunday in Dallas. Last season, the Western Conference teams didn't see each other at all in the first half of the full season. After the All-Star break, they faced off four times within four weeks, including three games in March. The Stars won three.
Dallas enters this game coming off a 4-1 win in Edmonton last night. After the Oilers scored first, defenseman Brenden Dillon knotted the score on a fluky pinball-action goal. Dillon's harmless initial shot hit Lennart Petrell's stick, deflected off the plexiglass behind the net, caromed back out in front, hit goaltender Devan Dubnyk in the back and then bounced over the goal line. The play will be on sports blooper highlights for many years to come.
I've seen hundreds of double-deflection goals and plenty of ones that hit the end wall, come out in front and go in either off the goaltender or a skater in front. But you don't see many triple-deflection goals, especially ones scored in the aforementioned manner. There was not a thing that Dubnyk -- or any goaltender in the world -- could have done to prevent it.
The Stars took the lead (for good, as it turned out) in the opening minute of the third period on an Eric Nystrom tally. This goal was nearly as strange as Dillon's. It was a double-deflection that first went off a defender's glove, struck Dubnyk in the mask and then went into the net. They all look the same in the box score, of course.
Dallas got a pair of insurance goals in the latter half of the third period. Jamie Benn got a counterattack rolling with a nice backchecking play near the defensive blueline. After an initial shot attempt by Trevor Daley was blocked, Jaromir Jagr followed up by claiming the puck and beating Dubnyk with a turnaround snap shot.
The goal, Jagr's fourth of the season and 669th of his illustrious career, moved him past Luc Robitaille into sole possession of 10th place in the NHL's all-time scoring list. Jagr is once again two career goals ahead of Anaheim's Teemu Selanne.
With 2:43 remaining in regulation, fourth liner Ryan Garbutt sealed the book on the game. Dallas won a battle on the boards in the defensive zone and Garbutt rushed the puck up the right wing, one-on-one against Nick Schultz. Showing good acceleration and balance, Garbutt fended off the defender, pulled the puck to his forehand and beat Dubnyk to make the score a 4-1 final.
The Stars once again got a stellar goaltending performance from Kari Lehtonen, who churns out games like last night's so routinely that they are almost easy to take for granted after a game turns into a multiple-goal victory. Lehtonen made 35 saves in all, including numerous difficult saves on dangerous chances while the momentum of the game still hung in the balance.
The importance of Lehtonen in last night's win cannot be overstated. Dallas once again was unable to solve the problem of taking more penalties than they drew on the opposition. The Stars five minors, including a pair of automatic delay-of-game and a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty. Conversely, Dallas had just three of their own power play opportunities.
The Stars got outshot 27-18 through the first two periods, including 16-8 in the middle stanza. Lehtonen was Dallas' big equalizer before the three-goal outburst in the final period, and also came up big while the lead was still just one goal.
Now it will be up the team to follow up that win with another one.
The Stars' problems in the second half of back-to-back games are well-documented. They are winless in such games this season and are 1-14-2 (0-2-1 in 2013) dating back to the start of Glen Gulutzan's coaching tenure. For Dallas, there's no better time than the present to solve this issue.
Throughout his coaching tenure, Gulutzan has almost always -- with one or two exceptions last year -- given Lehtonen the night off in the second game of back-to-backs. Lack of scoring has Dallas' main problem in these games. The club got strong efforts in losing causes from Cristopher Nilstorp and Richard Bachman this year. With another game coming up in Vancouver on Friday night, I would think Bachman will get the call tonight.
The Flames have lost five of their first six home games this season. They enter tonight's game coming off a 2-1 shootout loss to Minnesota on Monday. With long-tenured starter Miikka Kiprusoff out of the lineup with a knee injury, former first-round pick Leland Irving has taken over as the Calgary starter for the time being.
PROJECTED LINEUPS (Subject to change)
STARS
10 Brenden Morrow - 14 Jamie Benn - 68 Jaromir Jagr
21 Loui Eriksson - 11 Derek Roy - 73 Michael Ryder
18 Reilly Smith- 20 Cody Eakin - 81 Tomas Vincour
24 Eric Nystrom - 38 Vernon Fiddler - 40 Ryan Garbutt
4 Brenden Dillon - 3 Stephane Robidas
43 Jamie Oleksiak - 33 Alex Goligoski
36 Aaron Rome - 6 Trevor Daley
31 Richard Bachman
[32 Kari Lehtonen]
FLAMES (per Dailyfaceoff.com)
20 Curtis Glencross - 51 Roman Horak - 12 Jarome Iginla
24 Jiri Hudler - 40 Alex Tanguay - 10 Roman Cervenka
13 Mike Cammalleri - 28 Matt Stajan - 22 Lee Stempniak
17 Blake Comeau - 19 Blair Jones - 15 Tim Jackman
5 Mark Giordano - 4 Jay Bouwmeester
7 T.J. Brodie - 26 Dennis Wideman
44 Chris Butler - 6 Cory Sarich
Danny Taylor/ 35 Joey MacDonald
*******
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