It is no secret that the Dallas Stars are not a team that is particularly adept at defending the rush or clearing traffic out from in front of the net. When Kari Lehtonen is in goal, the team can often survive these shortcomings. When he's not between the pipes or has an off night, the Stars struggle.
In last night's 4-3 home loss to Vancouver, Cristopher Nilstorp was victimized repeatedly by poor defense in front of him. Coverages got lost on the rush or chances resulted from odd-man rushes, and too many pucks got turned over in dangerous areas. The Canucks got traffic in front and their point men blasted shots that ended up in the net.
There were no outright soft goals allowed by Nilstorp, although the weak backhanded shot through the five hole by Kevin Bieksa in which he beat Philip Larsen at the blueline was probably a stoppable opportunity. One of the two point-shot goals was deflected home by Alex Burrows off Alexander Edler's initial offering. The second one was a cannon shot by Jason Garrison with bodies in front.
Henrik Sedin's pretty goal was a two-on-one line rush. Aaron Rome was caught flat-footed as the rush turned into a two-on-one. Sedin and Burroughs then executed a perfect give-and-go. With Nilstorp committing himself early to Burrows and Alex Goligoski defending very poorly -- he made it far too easy for that return pass to get through -- it became a tap-in goal for what proved to be a much-needed insurance goal.
All in all, Nilstorp gave the Stars average goaltending last night. He didn't cost the team the game, but did little to help win it, either. As I wrote in the Philadelphia blog earlier today, there's often a tendency (I'm guilty of it sometimes, too) to look only at who was to blame on opposition goals and overlook what went on on plays that didn't end up in the net. Last night, neither Nilstorp nor Vancouver counterpart Cory Schneider looked unbeatable. To the extent that there were momentum saves made, Schneider made a couple more of them.
That being said, loose defense was the biggest culprit for both teams in this game. Two of last night's goals (one for each team) came about after one side pressed the attack in deep, turned over the puck and the other side scored moments thereafter.
The Stars actually got off to a good start in this game, as Jamie Benn bagged a goal in the opening minute. Dallas held leads of 1-0 and 2-1 but kept shooting themselves in the foot against a dangerous opponent. After the Canucks scored three unanswered goals to turn a 2-1 deficit into a 4-2 lead, Brenden Morrow cashed in on a bad turnover by Ryan Kesler right in front of the Vancouver net. But the Stars got no closer.
The Stars will try to get back over the .500 mark on the season tomorrow night when the San Jose Sharks pay a visit to the American Airlines Center.
************
KINDLE USERS: Please subscribe to Stars Buzz; a one-stop feed for all things Dallas Stars-related at HockeyBuzz. Content is automatically updated whenever a new blog is published. For more information,
click here.
Dallas Stars Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»