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Star Gazing: Dallas Upsets Defending Champs on Home Ice

December 4, 2013, 1:08 PM ET [25 Comments]
Bill Meltzer
Dallas Stars Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
All three games this season between the Dallas Stars and Chicago Blackhawks have been hard fought battles. In their third crack of the season series against the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Stars finally emerged on the winning side.

Last night in Chicago, Dallas built a 3-0 lead on goals by Valeri Nichushkin, Alex Chiasson (power play) and Erik Cole. The Hawks roared back in the second period for goals by Patrick Sharp (power play), Nick Leddy and Marcus Krueger. Finally, in the third period, Antoine Roussel converted a penalty shot to put Dallas on top to stay.

Kari Lehtonen was under siege for much of the game, getting bombarded with 50 shots to the 18 the Stars mustered against Corey Crawford. The big Finn had the answers on all but three.

Nichushkin opened the scoring on a line rush at 13:47 of the first period. He used Duncan Keith as a screen in the high slot and fired a tracer along the ice that eluded Crawford. The Russian rookie has a real quick release and generates a lot of movement on his shots but it was still one that the netminder may have liked to have back.

Crawford had no chance on the Chiasson goal at 18:50 of the first period. Chiasson set up shop right on the doorstep and re-directed a laser beam of a point shot from Alex Goligoski.

On Cole's goal, scored at 3:07 of the second period, the play came about as a result of the Stars winning a battle on the boards. Nichushkin attempted to step out in front of the net on a semi-wraparound but was denied the space. The puck went directly to Cole at point blank range.

With a 3-0 lead on the board, Dallas was on the receiving end of a gale force assault from the home side, pretty much for the rest of the game. Chicago outshot the Stars by a 34-13 margin over the final 40 minutes of the game.

The Sharp goal was a rising blast from the point through traffic in front. The Krueger goal was a nasty deflection of a Johnny Oduya point shot. Only the middle goal -- scored through the five hole by Leddy from a fairly tight angle at the bottom of the right circle -- was one that was potentially stoppable. Even then, Chicago displayed rapid puck movement and Leddy got rid of his shot quickly, as Lehtonen never really had a chance to get squared. He was still moving as the puck slid through.

Checking line pest Roussel -- a player who always pushes the envelope in his style of play and willingness to engage in trash taking -- capped an active game on a positive note. On the downside, he was guilty of a needless elbowing penalty against Jonathan Toews, which was promptly turned into Sharp's goal that started the Hawks' comeback on the scoreboard.

Roussel, who had a spirited late first-period fight with Chicago's Andrew Shaw, was also the initial culprit on the sequence that ultimately ended in Leddy's goal that cut the Stars' lead to 3-2.

In the third period, however, Roussel had the last laugh on this night. At 3:01, he was awarded a penalty shot after being hooked by Niklas Hjalmarsson on a breakaway. The puck started to roll on Roussel as he carried over the blueline. He deftly settled it flat, pulled the disc to his backhand and elevated a shot over Crawford to restore the lead at 4-3.

Immediately after he scored the goal, Roussel taunted the crowd and then soaked in the boos that rained down on him. He's never been a player who is shy about bringing heat on himself, and is probably not about to change his ways any time soon.

The Stars return to action on Thursday in Toronto. Game time is 6 p.m. CST.

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